The Gamble: What the reader Gets Out Of It

[ahunter3]

Authors and agents and writing coaches have a mantra: "show, don't tell". Instead of saying that John and Theresa had a fight, you describe the glares and the raised voices, you provide the dialog, describe the way the silverware jingles and bounces when the hand smacks down on the table, and so on.
There's an entire category of memoir that ought

Comments

[musicman]

Jan Morris was one of my favorite travel writers. Maybe still is. I did not know for the longest time of her sex change, and I didn't give much thought to it after I found out. Her writing was what sold me on that. (I'm not talking about her story of her own transition)

There are several black authors's whose work I read because I like the work, and not because they write just about being black, or make all their important characters black. Same with Asian authors. Tess Geritson's fiction was fun to read, it had nothing to do with the fact that she was Asian.

Readers take from writers what they can. They will never take all the writer intended, or meant, or accomplished (which are sometimes very different). As a writer, one can only do one's best to illustrate and show, and yet, sometimes one does have to tell the reader, rather than to always show. How well we accomplish those two - show and tell - determine how well we do as a writer.

I read Rubyfruit Jungle when it first came out. Loved it. Was hooked on Rita Mae Brown's books

[mallorys_camera]

I am counting on people reading my book and seeing a social phenomenon, without me jumping up ever 3rd paragraph or so to say "Now, you see, that would have gone down differently if I had been a typical boy instead of a girlish / girl-identified male".

If that's the case, what is the story? Because that's why most people read -- for the story.

And I think you're wrong about Upton Sinclair. The Jungle was very much intended to be an expose of conditions inside a meat packing plant. If I'm remembering correctly, Sinclair actually spent 6 weeks working inside a meatpacking plant to research it. Any other storyline was incidental.

[doc_cathode]

Actually, I've read a Sinclair quote agreeing with AHunter3. It ended with 'I was aiming for America's heart. I missed and hit its stomach.'

[ahunter3]

Well, I do think the story itself is entertaining. It has suspense and conflict and resolution and all that shit! :)

But I do want them also to "get it".

[ext_2560695]

Just keep writing...get it out...everything you want to say and worry about where it goes after....this story must be written in your person.

[ahunter3]

Gotten that far! This sucker is written!

That's not to say I can keep my hands off it for long. There's always a passage where I think a different sequence of words would be an improvement. I suspect that for all authors there's always that possibility, of going back in and doing stuff with it, right up until you do something that solidifies it in a specific form.

[khall]

The most important part of any writing is the story. The narrative thread. You can write a story about an entymologist who does nothing but count ants all day. And if it's well written and well paced and has semi-realistic dialogue, people will like it. That's one of the main tricks in writing I've learned. The story isn't really about the story. It's about the...craft and the...magic of sucking the reader in. What you are writing about is...only important to you, the author. The message has to be/should be couched in...entertainment. I think that's part of why readers don't always get what we want them to out of our writing. Because they have to be...seduced, for lack of a better word and you lose their focus or intensity that way, by trying to...lull them along with you. I mean, being an author is being a brainwasher. If you're good, you can get people to agree with you, even if they wouldn't normally vote that way or whatever. It's the mob mind or come along or something, the ability of an author to make the reader empathize with

[khall]

Also, there are several communication theories that say all communication is metaphor. And the layers of metaphor we get wrapped up in often cause confusion, but the trade off is, people 'get' metaphor...mostly.

K.