Purely as a writer? What the premise and first few chapter promise. The author may still have written a "bad" book, but if they play fair then I am the one responsible for putting it in my brain.
How about as a reader? Writers, when asked this question, (in my experience) tend to say things like "I write the kind of book I want to read." Sounds good, but sidesteps the question.
Sorry, I may have been confusing. I was definitely responding as a reader. "Purely as a writer" was meant to avoid getting into the sort of moral/religious decency that I expect from anyone in any profession - to use one's powers for good (or at the least not ill), etc.
I was thinking of a particular book when I replied. From my perspective, the author didn't play fair and so did hurt/betray me by not giving me time to step out of the way. Overall I'm good at judging what might really bother me, but the series and the genre had given me certain expectations that I expected to be met in a straightforward genre book.
With a book like Liar, on the other hand, the first chapter, title, and premise make it clear that I'm in for an ambiguous ride. I haven't read more than the first chapter (TBR pile), but when I do I won't be expecting the same things I would of a Tamora Pierce book.
I think this is a trick question, depending on your audience and the purpose of your work. For example, I write a column for teenagers, and the moment I get preachy is the moment I have to take my hands off and stop writing. But that's the purpose of the column; maybe somewhere else it would be different.
I think people should write what they write. We owe our readers only the best. Our readers will either go along with us or not, and that's not something we can accurately predict. Unless we're writing popular vampire romances about sparkly people. Or something.
But the writer who gave the world sparkly vampires was writing a story true to her, and wow did it speak to a lot of readers.
That does bring us back to what is truth; not all reading is going to cause us to ponder great questions, but maybe those works that do cause us to examine the truth in our lives are . . . no, the question is, what do writers owe readers.
The more I think about it, the less sure I am of answers.
Oh, sure. Because as much as my truth is "sparkly vampires suck," there are enough people out there who find some sort of truth in that to make me rethink that.
Writers certainly don't owe readers truth. That would have cheated me out of some of my favorite unreliable narrators... and a really great lesson I taught to some tenth-graders two years ago. :)
Then you don't think writers owe the reader anything?
Unreliable narrators . . . good subject. Is there a truth underlying a story told by an unreliable narrator? I've noticed a lot of criticism of Justine Larbalestier's daring Liar expressing frustration relating to this question. (Don't want to say more lest it get spoilery)
I'm with tammy_moore: a good story. Thing is, what I think is a good story, and what someone else thinks is a good story may well be two different things. I don't like a lot of what passes for literature these days because I find bleak, unrelenting character torture boring. Does that mean those writers are not telling good stories? I don't think they are, but there are many who would disagree.
OTOH, it can be dangerous if you try to please everyone. The first draft of my short story "Memento Mori" made half of my first readers say "Love it!" and the other half say "Hate it!" Which group was right? I have no idea, but the "hate its" worried me. The ending of the final draft wound up being more ambiguous, but I still wonder if I should have stuck with that original version, if just for the pure, visceral reaction it gave readers.
I like both the first and the final draft for different reasons. The version that I hated with a hatey hate was the second draft. That was an attempt to "fix" all the things that the folks who didn't like the first draft felt were wrongbadicky. IMO, it completely de-fanged the story and turned what one reader called a "sucker punch to the gut" into a thwap with a down pillow. The final draft was a compromise between the two. It works, but I still kind of wish I'd had the guts to stick with that first draft.
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I read because I enjoy reading. If you can give me something good to read then the contract is fulfilled. Anything more than that is gravy.
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I was thinking of a particular book when I replied. From my perspective, the author didn't play fair and so did hurt/betray me by not giving me time to step out of the way. Overall I'm good at judging what might really bother me, but the series and the genre had given me certain expectations that I expected to be met in a straightforward genre book.
With a book like Liar, on the other hand, the first chapter, title, and premise make it clear that I'm in for an ambiguous ride. I haven't read more than the first chapter (TBR pile), but when I do I won't be expecting the same things I would of a Tamora Pierce book.
Reply
Reply
I think this is a trick question, depending on your audience and the purpose of your work. For example, I write a column for teenagers, and the moment I get preachy is the moment I have to take my hands off and stop writing. But that's the purpose of the column; maybe somewhere else it would be different.
I think people should write what they write. We owe our readers only the best. Our readers will either go along with us or not, and that's not something we can accurately predict. Unless we're writing popular vampire romances about sparkly people. Or something.
Reply
That does bring us back to what is truth; not all reading is going to cause us to ponder great questions, but maybe those works that do cause us to examine the truth in our lives are . . . no, the question is, what do writers owe readers.
The more I think about it, the less sure I am of answers.
Reply
Writers certainly don't owe readers truth. That would have cheated me out of some of my favorite unreliable narrators... and a really great lesson I taught to some tenth-graders two years ago. :)
Reply
Unreliable narrators . . . good subject. Is there a truth underlying a story told by an unreliable narrator? I've noticed a lot of criticism of Justine Larbalestier's daring Liar expressing frustration relating to this question. (Don't want to say more lest it get spoilery)
Reply
I'm with tammy_moore: a good story. Thing is, what I think is a good story, and what someone else thinks is a good story may well be two different things. I don't like a lot of what passes for literature these days because I find bleak, unrelenting character torture boring. Does that mean those writers are not telling good stories? I don't think they are, but there are many who would disagree.
OTOH, it can be dangerous if you try to please everyone. The first draft of my short story "Memento Mori" made half of my first readers say "Love it!" and the other half say "Hate it!" Which group was right? I have no idea, but the "hate its" worried me. The ending of the final draft wound up being more ambiguous, but I still wonder if I should have stuck with that original version, if just for the pure, visceral reaction it gave readers.
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