Every reading experience begins in the mind of the writer and is completed in the mind of the reader.
That means every time I finish writing a book, I’m only half done. No communication, no entertainment has taken place until someone reads what I wrote.
Only when there is a reader has the act of writing a novel been completed. And for the reading experience to be a positive one, the reader has to be able to tap into the world I created and been able to take something away from it that he or she can make part of his or her ongoing experience in this journey we call life.
Lee Child, in his 2012 introduction to a new printing of the first Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor, says essentially the same thing.
Child wrote in that introduction this gem:
To me, entertainment was a transaction. You do it, they watch it, then it exists. Like a Zen question: If you put on a show, and nobody comes, have you in fact put on a show at all?
The reader is vital to any fiction writing experience. Not awards. Not accolades. Not bestseller status. Those things are nothing.
Bestseller status can be, and often is, gamed. (For example, Joanna Penn wrote a blog post on how you can ad stake your way to bestseller status.)
Accolades can be false. “That was a great book, Chris!” Said not because Jed actually meant it, but because it’s the social thing to do. Or maybe he’s hoping I’ll write him a 5-star review.
Awards basically mean nothing except to those who put value on what other people think. And often the award is based on who gets the most votes. So the winner is simply the one who got his or her fans to cast the most votes. Pure high school.
All that really matters are readers. Because readers read books. It is the reader that counts — and only the reader.
I am a reader. I have been ever since I can remember. Books are my life. Wear the old coat and buy the new book.
What do I look for in a book or short story? First and foremost — character. As Lee Child noted in the above mentioned introduction:
Character is king. There are probably fewer tha 6 books every century remembered specifically for their plots. People remember characters. Same with television. Who remembers the Lone Ranger? Everybody. Who remembers any actual Lone Ranger story lines? Nobody.
But great characters are only a part of the puzzle. There are certain themes I gravitate towards and others I shy away from.
In my life, I’ve experienced a significant amount of injustice. Unfairness. So for me, justice and fairness are very important themes. I want to see an unfair world made fair. I want the characters in the books I read, the good guys, to right wrongs. To see to it that the bullies and cheaters don’t win.
As a reader, so am I as a writer. My private detective’s name reflects it all: Justinia Wright. Justinia comes from the Latin for justice, and Wright to connote that she makes things right.
Pierce Mostyn fights an uncaring, and to us unfair, universe and its minions. He does his best to prevent bad things from happening to good people.
The other theme that is important for me is loyalty. In my world, when I was a child, I often felt like Julius Caesar, crying out “Et tu Brute?”. And in some ways that feeling of betrayal at the hands of those I trusted continued into adulthood. So loyalty and betrayal are themes which gain my attention as a reader.
And loyalty and betrayal also factor in my writing. For all their bickering, Tina and Harry Wright depend on each other. They are loyal to each other, through thick and thin.
Bill Arthur, in The Rocheport Saga, as he seeks to build a new world out of the ashes of the apocalypse, is constantly faced with issues of loyalty and betrayal.
To the extent a writer can tap into what is important to me, that writer becomes memorable.
For the most part, I think most readers don’t give this idea of themes conscious thought. They read books and like some and not others. The books they like they often aren’t even sure why they like them. Most likely, though, they like those books because they tap into things that matter to the reader.
As writers, we have to give this considerable thought if we want a ready audience. What is our message? The more we can identify it and communicate it, the more likely we are to find our fans. And not have to rely on accident or luck.
Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!
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