squeetus

On the openness of stories

Ooh, so many wonderful comments on the last post! I love hearing from the teenagers along with the parents. Great stuff to think about. I've been thinking too, and here's my own uber-long comment.

Like Tobin and Lauren, I agree that what we believe, our world views, our way of understanding people, can't help but leak through into our stories and structure them, whether we want them to or not. And that this is a good thing. There's a reason we want to read books written by human beings, not robots or board room committees. I like my world views. I approve of them. I'm thrilled when I hear a reader has taken good from my stories, that their life has improved somehow, that they've become more tolerant of others or of themselves, that they've thought through questions the story posed in a positive way. This is great! However, what I keep coming back to is I cannot control this nor do I seek to. I cannot force this. I cannot write from a teaching place if I hope to create an effective story. This knowledge may matter more to writers than to readers, but I think it's important to acknowledge.

Like Mette, I lament that some readers interpret this leakage of personal beliefs as an AGENDA on my part. I don't think I have an agenda. However, like Lauren, I do have wishes for the world that leak through and I'm not a bit sorry if readers adopt them. Some beliefs I notice perpetually in my stories are that I believe girls are awesome. I believe boys are awesome too. I believe everyone has unique talents, some they're not aware of yet, and many that won't show up on a No Child Left Behind test. I believe that we can all make choices. I believe there are many ways to look at one idea. I believe our relationships with other people are the bedrock of happiness. Even with all my awesome beliefs in my quiver, I couldn't write a book trying to teach these ideas. That would fatally wound the story. And since I don't make an effort to "teach" these things, it's possible a reader won't take these things away from my stories but something else entirely. And that's okay. Whatever a reader gains from my stories on her own will be much more powerful than whatever I could try to teach.

I've said this before, but when people praise me for the positive influence my books have had in their lives or in the lives of kids, I'm grateful, but I think they're giving me way more credit than I deserve. The reader is an ENORMOUS part of this interaction.

Megan Whalen Turner added in a comment on the last post, "I wish I'd had MT Anderson on hand here in Pomona when I was going around and around with Roger Sutton trying to illuminate the difference, if there is one, between telling the reader what to think about something and telling the reading something you'd like them to think about. Both are attempts to guide world-building, but the underlying assumptions are very different." It's this elusive difference that I feel is SO important to a writer during the process and can be important as well to a reader in understanding that process and the responsibility of the writer.

Like Brandon, I believe characters need to have their own moral compasses. Of course, their moral compass may not be the same as mine, as Mette points out. For example, Enna and Isi, despite their friendship, see the world very differently, and I decided as an author to stay out of it and not side with either of them! (I try never to get between those girls.)  Brandon notes that themes naturally occur as you write, but an author forcing them kills the story. It's rare, but some authors openly do that, and I feel like I can smell an agenda on a story. Even if it's one I agree with, I hate that. Totally takes me out of the story and make me suspicious of every word. Just tell the story and trust me, the reader, to come away with what I need!

I would argue that the very essence, the purpose, the power of of fiction is NOT to teach meaning. It's to tell a story. A good story is full of questions, of different kinds of characters, of incidents that weave together to make a whole. Through the journey of the story, the reader finds her own meaning, and it's such a unique experience, her journey and understanding will be different than any other reader's. The experience must be different than that of non-fiction or there's no reason for it. A fictional story about rape or loss or growing up should not provide the same experience as a text book or information pamphlet. It should not seek to. A fiction story has to let go, not hit every bullet point, not attempt to cover every aspect of the topic and make sure everything is crystal clear and unable to be misunderstood. A fiction story has to trust the reader to attach her own beliefs, understandings, needs to the story to make it a complete experience.

I have a six-year-old son who I keep from reading certain books and watching certain movies he is not ready for. I believe in a parent's understanding of her own child's readiness. But I do believe that for the most part, kids take what they need and what they're ready for. I know many of you disagree with this, and maybe someday I'll change my mind, but that is my belief. I have 7 and 8-year-old readers of the goose girl who claim it as their favorite book. They can't possibly get out of it all that a 15-year-old or an adult might, but they absorb what they need and can handle. This does not mean that I'm going to write erotica for preteens. That would be stupid. I listen to my own internal reader, a combination of myself now and all my younger selves, to guide what stories need to be.

Like Janette, I'm uncomfortable with stories that depict young people doing potentially harmful things without what seems to me a natural exploration of consequences. I was not sexually active as a teenager. I've seen first hand harsh and life-changing consequences to friends who were sexually active as teens. Sometimes they truly didn't understand all the implications of their actions and twenty years later still mourn their behavior. But like Holly, I'm keenly aware that what one reader might find uncomfortable and unrealistic is absolute reality to another. I believe that an author can't control the many ways a story is read and received, and so their responsibility must be to their own internal compass and to the characters, and cannot be to every individual reader. At least a teacher in a classroom can see her students and knows something about them--their age, their geography, and often their personalities and backgrounds. A writer has endless potential readers we know nothing about and cannot control. How could I possibly write to every reader? How can I determine what each reader who might read my book might need to hear and might be mature enough to face? I've learned from hundreds of reader reactions that most everyone feels that their own standards of right and wrong are somewhat universal. They're not. What seems like flagrant irresponsibility to one person can be honesty and power to another. As parents, we cannot put our own morals and beliefs into the hands of an author or rating system. Only we can set that standard for ourselves and teach our children how to set their own.

Like Ann and Mette, I worry that some readers (parents) expect all my characters to be model persons and only do what I'd want my own child to do. That would take away the power of the story and the whole reason for books. I think it's a mistake to assume that anything a character does in a book is approved and encouraged by the writer. Heck, I don't approve or encourage many of the things I've done in my life. Hopefully I've learned from them and am a better person for it.

Like Holly, I believe in the importance of many stories, including some that some readers aren't comfortable with. And in the magic of stories that allow teens to figure themselves and others out.

I've heard from many parents that they trust me as an author, that they feel safe giving my books to their children because they trust I won't write anything inappropriate. I know many of you want me to say that I believe an author must be responsible for every word they write, every story they tell. That those who write for young readers have an obligation to make sure they're not being irresponsible with the stories they tell. But I can't say that. It would be dishonest, because it's just not possible. If we required that of authors, there would be no more books. As a writer, I can only be responsible to myself, my internal reader. I try to live a good life, to keep an open mind, to keep learning, to seek to understand people, especially those different than me, and hope that my own life and understanding comes through my stories in a positive way.

Stories are powerful, and their power comes from their openness. They should be easy to enter. They reach us more profoundly than can a lesson or a list because they allow us to insert ourselves, apply our own experiences and beliefs. The more work the author does to prescribe what a reader should take from the story, to micromanage the message, to assure the reader takes nothing from the story but what the author judges is safe for them to take, the less power the story has and the less a reader can change from it.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

Anyhoo, in conclusion, books are cool. Thanks to my awesome author friends for taking the time to share their insights. You're cool too. So be cool, commenters, and give us your own awesome POV. And next post, I'd like to open the can of worms that is the theoretical book rating system, as I think that's an interesting topic with so many opinions!

How to be a reader: book evaluation vs. self-evaluation

One of my favorite things to do, besides reading books, is talking about books, especially with others who have read the same ones. But lately I've noticed a tendency to ask the same question:

"Did you like it?"

I question that question. I question it with perhaps a questionable reason, but question it all the same. "Did you like it?" Is that the only reason to read a book? To like it or not like it? Is that the most important part of reading?

This has been on my mind lately also as I've been musing on the prevalence of review sites and blogs. On most reviews (not professional ones, but reader reviews) it's commonplace to rate the book. The  frequent measurement is 1-5 stars. This is so normal, it's only recently I've begun to question that too.

Let me jump back a moment. Years ago, when I started subscribing to the New Yorker, I was disappointed in the movie review section. The reviewer didn't rate the movies! He just talked about them for a page or two, discussing the choices the director, actors, and screenwriters made, analyzing the pieces, opining on what worked and what didn't, and comparing that movie to others and to current happenings in the world. But he didn't give me any evaluative starrage! A thumb up or down! A quick and easy way to sum up the quality of the film and therefore decide for me if it was worth my time and money! I resented that. For a while.

But after a year or so of reading his reviews, he became my favorite movie reviewer out there. How much I would rather sit inside his discussion of the movie, his observations, even when I disagreed, then have the whole flick discarded as a number. I find it enlightening, fascinating, thought-provoking. But he is a rarity. As are book reviews online that discuss and observe rather than rate. I wonder how the focus on rating is affecting, even transforming, our individual reading experience and attitude toward books.

In my opinion, there are more interesting questions to ask myself after reading a book than what I would rate it. What was the author trying to do? Did she succeed or fail for me? What devices did she use to create her tone, to reveal characterization, to paint a world? And not to say that evaluative questions are all wrong either. For example:

I loved this book so much. What was it that resonated? Would I have loved this book as much ten years ago? Five years ago? Will I keep loving it in the future? Where am I in my life that this is the story I wanted and needed?

I reacted negatively to this book. Why? What is it about this story or characters or style that hit me so strongly? What does that say about me?

This is starting to sound overly psychoanalytical, and that's not what I intended. Personally, I don't like reading self help. At all. (Hmm...what does that say about me? Interesting...) And I definitely DO NOT thinking reading fiction should be confined to self-evaluatory exercise. But I think that can be part of it. As I've said elsewhere, I believe a story is 50% the book's role + 50% the reader's. I like to read to learn about other kinds of people, go far away, experience things I would never know or see. But I also like to read to see my own reality more clearly, understand my own world and own self better. By limiting a reading experience to "how awesome the author is" or "how lame the author is" I'm denying myself a full reading experience. I'm shutting out possibilities of how I personally grow and change after reading a story. I'm denying my essential role as reader in the storytelling experience.

Even "bad" books, even books I just couldn't love, or even like, can be fascinating to me. They change the way I see the world too. Just like the old adage--what you dislike most in other people is what you dislike the most in yourself--I believe that what I dislike most in books highlights some of my own fears, insecurities, worries, and prejudices. I'm thinking of a couple of books I read this summer that I did NOT like. Honestly, I'm still glad I read them. I've stewed over them more than some of the books I breezed through and loved, and I think they've improved me as a writer, as I keep growing in understanding of what I want and need from a story, and how I can deliver that in my own books.

So, I wonder if book evaluation is trumping self-evaluation. I wonder if we get so caught up in gushing or bashing, shining up those stars or taking them away, that the reading experience is weighed too heavily on the side of the book itself and not enough on the reader. After all, reader is more important than book. Reader is the one who changes from reading, not the book. Reader is the one who lives the magic of storytelling.

Some things to discuss for those of you who review books on blogs, amazon, goodreads, etc.:
1. Do you find that the anticipation of reviewing the book has changed your reading experience?
2. Are you rating the book even as you read? Or do you wait until the end to sum it all up?
3. Does knowing you'll be reviewing it (or rating it) publicly affect which books you pick up in the first place?
4. Does the process of writing the review itself change how you felt about the book?
5. What is your motivation to assign a rating to a book and declare it to the world?
6. If you review a book but don't rate, why not? What do you feel is your role as reviewer?
I'm very curious about all this and hope you feel free to speak freely (and kindly and respectfully, of course) even if you disagree with me.

How to be a reader: Making yourself fully literate

My last post addressed the common sentiment that books with pictures are for very young children and the goal is to get them to move beyond that. I'd like to propose that the goal is not to have kids/teens/adults get to the point where we'll only reading unillustrated prose novels, but to get kids/teens/adults confident in reading and literate enough to navigate this world.

First let me say if the only purpose for reading a book is to pass a pleasant afternoon, then mission accomplished. Reading as entertainment should not be dismissed. But of course as parents and teachers, we want our kids to be great readers and read every day. Why?

It's about processing information and about learning to think, besides developing imagination and exposing ourselves to new ideas and ways of being. In school, college, the workplace, the world, the ability to take in new information, understand it, and act on it is vital. Reading helps us get there. But not all our information comes in newspaper format, i.e. words on a page. I think honoring three different mediums for stories makes it more possible for us to be completely literate. (man, I sound so official, don't I? What, do I think I'm presenting a paper at an academic conference or something?) [EDIT: good thing I'm not at an academic conference since I wrote mediums instead of media.]

Prose novels--Absolutely, being fully literate includes reading unillustrated prose and picturing for ourselves the characters, place, and action. I am in no way dissing the unillustrated novel. I've written seven of them. This category represents the majority of my personal reading. I find myself more able to get lost in a story of a prose novel than any other. However, I think it important not to assume that everyone is like me. Some people really struggle to form those pictures from words. Hopefully if they fall in love with reading in other mediums, eventually they'll develop the ability to fall into a prose novel as well. But taking away everything else and pushing a reader into this kind of book will most likely make them hate it.

Illustrated books--Here I include picture books and graphic novels, books I read every day as well, some for my kids, some for myself. I find this kind of reading so refreshing and delightful.

Pictures in early readers are good because they help develop a child's imagination--when the child is young and inexperienced at storytelling (because that's what we do when we read a book--tell ourselves the story) they need the handle of illustrations so they can picture what's going on in their minds. But once they gain that ability, many believe, they should leave behind illustrations along with their teddy bear and security blanket. It's something you grow out of, something that will inhibit your ability to imagine for yourself. I disagree. Visual storytelling is very much a part of our world and another way we learn information. The very best illustrated books, in my mind, tell two stories. The pictures don't simply represent what's going on in the text, but amplify it, comment on it. The story you get from reading just the text should be different than reading the whole. Reading these kinds of books most definitely works your brain. Besides, illustrations are another form of art, a celebration of the visual sense. If the only place we get visual art is in a museum then this world is greatly diminished.

Graphic novels are not simply a movie in book form. A movie gives you the entire flowing image, sound, and music to create a mood for you. The real magic in a graphic novel happens in the white space between each panel. The reader must supply the action that happens there. You look at the first panel, then the second, then imagine what's missing, piecing it all together to make a whole action. This is working a different part of your brain than just reading words on a page. And it's a skill worth developing. Do you know an adult who never read comics as a child and when introduced to a comic or GN now can't make any sense of it? We are fed pictorial information every day. It's valuable to exercise our ability to understand it.

Nathan Hale in rapunzel's revenge employs what I think of as the perfect kind of illustration. He isn't trying to be "artsy" and break ground--his goal is the most noble one: to tell the story. His illustrations are not too simple--not just talking heads on blank backgrounds. Nor are they too complex--not intimidating to those new to this medium or require careful examination just to understand at a basic level. He finds, in my mind, the perfect medium. You can read quickly and understand, then go back and examine and get even more information, piece together the story at a more profound level. It's not as easy as watching a movie or TV show, it requires more work by the reader. By that same token, it also allows the reader to be more of a participant in the storytelling process rather than simply being a viewer.

Audio books (or books read aloud)--So much of the information we get is audio. Most of the information we get in a classroom is audio, and I've read one study that puts visual learners at greater risk in getting left behind in school that audio learners. (I'm a visual learner--I have a very hard time remembering something new if I don't see it.) Listening to books read is a wonderful way to become more literate. For some reason, some people consider listening to an audio book "cheating" or "not really reading." Hogwash. Learning to absorb information given in audio is vital. Listening to an audio book is different than talking to someone on the phone. Following a story told aloud is developing a listening and comprehending skill that would serve us all well.

Again, like pictures, it's something we think we need to leave behind at a young age. We read to young kids, but often as soon as the child is old enough to read on her own, she reads to us but no longer is a listener. One of my favorite times in school was hearing the teacher read a chapter of a book aloud, but I'm told by many teachers that this is just one of many high points that they've had to abandon due to the rigors of the testing requirements (curse you No Child Left Behind!). And of course, once out of elementary school, this ritual is abandoned. Before television, families would sit and listen as someone read a book aloud. No more. As adults, many of us listen to talk radio, NPR, but kids and teens usually don't. This is the area of literacy where I'm weakest. When I was growing up, audio books were commonly abridged, scarce, and not extremely well done. This is a golden age of audio books now, and I'm diving in and loving it.

I was surprised at how young an age I could start my kids on audio books. Max at age 4 (and now at 5) loves the Moongobble and Me series by Bruce Coville. We love listening to these on long car rides. As well, we read books aloud to him and tell him stories. (Max wants me to add here, "Max can read." He really can. The little cutie.) Audio books can be a great boon for older kids, teens, and adults who aren't getting read to. I believe continuing to listen to audio books all life long hones listening skills and rounds out our literacy triad.

So.

We read words.
We read pictures.
We hear words.

All important to literacy. And may I add...also potentially a rippin' good time

How to be a reader: Why write a good book?

In my last How to be a reader post, Emily M. asks, "If any book is a good book, as long as it has an audience, what's the point of craftsmanship? Why wrestle with every word? Why bother to take a red pen to the adverbs? Why not be satisfied with the first or even the fifth draft, instead of the twentieth?...So, again: why do you write the way you do, if your books, by your own standard, would be good no matter how they were written, as long as they had a reader who loved them?"

Great followup question, Emily. My best answer is, because it would matter to me. Again, it always comes back to writing for my internal reader. I could never write for a market. I wouldn’t know how to write a word. There are some writers who can do that, write formula fiction, write media tie-ins, Nancy Drew books, etc. More power to them. There’s a place for that. But I can’t. There’s a certain amount of faith it takes to be a writer, faith that if you can find the story that you would want to read, then there will be others who will want to read it too. But if you’re writing a book you don’t even like or think is very good, what are the odds that anyone else will?

This is a TOUGH marketplace. As a writer, you can never measure yourself to other books, never write something less than spectacular and then say, “Well, it’s better than some stuff.” Good luck getting that published. Good luck finding readers who will fall in love with that story.

I do believe that the qualifiers “good” and “bad” can only be decided by each reader. What is good for one is bad for another. As a writer, I can only write what is good for me. It’s worth it to me to pour months and years into a book and do dozens of drafts to get it just right because the reason I write is to please myself. After my books are published, no matter the reviews or reader response, ultimately I am happy with them. That’s a great feeling. But pleasing myself isn't enough--after I reach that milestone, I want to share my story. Something about the creative arts makes us want to share. But how could I feel good about sharing my work if I didn't think it was my best?

It’s possible that if I did give up on draft 5 and called it good that I would still have readers who loved the book. But I doubt I could have as many. I have no data to support that, but I think of it like this--have you ever seen a play or movie where you could just feel from the actor that they didn’t like the lines they were speaking? That they didn’t get the character, that they were going through the motions? I think that’s how it would be to read a book by an author who wasn’t pleased with it. I’ve read books I didn’t like but could still respect because I felt like the story was complete for someone, that the author had a good time with it or poured their souls into it. Worse is a half-a-book that nobody loved. Am I getting too metaphysical here? I don’t think this is all scientific. Readers do half the job telling the story, and writers do half. There’s dialog there, an exchange, a relationship. It’s a beautiful thing I never want to take lightly.

How to be a reader: Good book vs. bad book

It would be so convenient if we could classify books as either good or bad, as vegetables or candy, as Literature or Dross. Sometimes I really want to. Many of us have been on both the giving and receiving end of this campaign: “That’s trash!” or “I can’t believe you actually read that stuff” or “Those kinds of books will rot your brain.” We got it as kids, we get it as adults (and give it, perhaps). I think it’s good to question the merit of what we’re putting into our minds. But I also think it’s wise to challenge how we determine the value and quality of a book.

So we don’t have to name names, let’s invent two fictional works of fiction for our bout and put them on two extremes.

In the first corner, we have an excruciatingly profound work of literary fiction, All the Perfumes of Arabia (or APA). Geoffrey T. Neville toiled over APA for the first fifteen years of his adult life. After surviving World War 1, Neville despaired over the brevity of human existence, how our actions haunt us forever after, and the lack of redemption. What makes this book an enduring masterpiece is not only how Neville crafted the story but each sentence, each word, every comma (and of course, omitting any semicolons or exclamation marks, and using adverbs and adjectives sparingly). The Pulitzer Prize committee said of APA, “Neville takes an unflinching and unsentimental view of post-war America. His stark prose and flawed characters lead us to questions without answers, enveloped in a story both tragic and mundane, leading to the inevitable tragic and mundane ending.”

In the other corner, we have Hunger Bay, a mass market paperback found in your local grocery store. It is the eighty-eighth book penned by Plum Savage and took her a total of three weeks to write. Hunger Bay follows the same formula as sixty-seven of Savage’s other books, though this one has a spicy Cajun flavor. Javier, a brilliant and devastatingly handsome but world-weary doctor, flees his past for southern Louisiana. There he meets Bebelle, a strikingly beautiful Cajun woman, who goes crawfish hunting in loose peasant blouses and torn skirts, barefoot, her tanned legs bare up to her thighs, her black hair wild and loose. They are compatible emotionally and physically, but his past and her strict daddy keep them separated (except for a few choice adjective-ridden encounters) until at last Bebelle helps Javier forgive himself for his past, and in turn Javier helps Babelle’s father into a crocodile’s mouth. At last, Javier and Bebelle fall into each other’s arms forever, in a way that employs lots of adverbs and steams up your reading glasses.

So. Which book is the good book and which is the bad?

All the Perfumes of Arabia is embraced by critics, lauded with awards, studied in college classes, and seventy years after its publication is still in print, published in a “Desktop Classics” series, cover art featuring a painting by Renoir. Surely that means it’s a good book. Right?

Does Hunger Bay deserve the National Book Award, need to be required reading in college literature courses, turned into an Oscar-worthy movie, studied in depth and lauded as a terrifyingly gorgeous study of human nature and work of art? I would say not. Does that mean it's a bad book?

What is our criteria for a good book?

• How long the writer took to write it?
• How long ago it was written?
• Whether or not it has a “happy” ending?
• If it can be read quickly or takes careful studying to be enjoyed?
• How many adverbs are employed?
• What lessons the writer wants to teach us?
• How many awards it received?
• Which genre it espouses?
• Whether or not it follows a formula?

There is no doubt there's a difference between the reading experience of those two books. I think when we expose ourselves to art, our minds are enlivened, our world changes. I don’t think I’d classify Hunger Bay as art (but I could be wrong). But is art for art’s sake the only reason we read? Should it be?

So, if those two books existed in isolation, if no one ever read them, it might be pretty easy to say Hunger Bay is trash and All the Perfumes of Arabia is fine literature. But something happens, some profound chemical reaction, when a reader is introduced. The reader takes the text and changes it just by reading it. The reader tells herself a story from the words on the page. It is a unique story only for her. Say Nancy Jones reads Hunger Bay and passes a pleasant afternoon, enjoying the experience but forgetting the story soon thereafter. Or perhaps Nancy finds correlations in the relationships between Bebelle and her own life, makes connections she never has before, and comes away knowing herself better? Or what if Nancy  hadn't read a book in 20 years, but Hunger Bay captured her and she discovered she liked reading after all. Maybe she'll keep reading grocery story mass market paperbacks, or maybe she'll even end up reading APA and loving that as well. For Nancy, was Hunger Bay a bad book?

Worth of story and quality of writing are difficult to measure. This isn’t mathematics, there are no absolutes. The only way to measure the quality of a book is by its effect on the reader. And every reader is different. There are some books that have survived the test of time. They were brilliant, insightful, and moving not only in the year they were written but continue to be so year after year. Shakespeare survives because his plots, characters, and words continue to resonate. Jane Austen feels as vibrant, funny, and delicious nearly 200 years later. But I know many readers who can’t stomach either Shakespeare or Austen. For those readers, they are not great writers. And what about books written recently. Do we really know what will survive? Perhaps Stephen King will still be read 300 years from now when all the National Book Award winners are long out of print. It seems kind of pointless to try and judge a book by whether or not it will last. It seems more worthwhile to measure its impact now, reader-by-reader.

I would like to submit that there are no bad books. There are no bad genres. I personally get the most out of reading books that are not only marvels of storytelling and wonders of wordsmithery, but exciting and new and full of vibrant characters who make discoveries and take journeys and fill me with hope. And other people want to read quiet, odd little tales of existential horror. Again, we’re all different.

There are loads of factors in deciding if a book is good or bad for a particular reader, a major one being age appropriateness. A three-year-old might clutch Knuffle Bunny to his chest and beg for it to be read over and over again. At age thirteen, he could read it and think it's stupid, pointless drivel. At age thirty, he could read it to his 3-year-old and fall back in love. During those years, Knuffle Bunny wasn’t the one who changed.

I used to be pretty elitist. And I still believe passionately that there are some books that are just fun and some that are works of art, and the reading experiences for both are different. I do believe it's positive to expose ourselves not only to books that are fun page turners but ones that express in words the unexpressable, that make us see the world in a new way, that tickle us with words and create metaphors that make the floor feel as if it's falling away from under us. Both have a place on my shelves.

So, who won our bout? I guess that’s for each reader to decide. For writers especially, I think it’s wise to read all kinds of literature. But at this particular moment and phase in my life, I would struggle to get through either of those books. I know other readers who would eat them up, and I would never feel comfortable telling them that either book is bad. But as for me, I think I’ll go read a Diana Wynne Jones.

The moral of the--wait, what’s a moral?

You’d think that by the horrific length of my last post, I would have had my say already on this topic, but I realized that I had assumed we all were using the same definition for “moral.”

Mb commented on the previous post, “To me there is a huge difference between theme and moral. A theme gives depth to a story, ties it together, and hopefully provokes thought. A moral comes out and says, "This is the lesson you should take away." A theme raises questions; a moral purports to give answers. When I write a story, the theme(s) tends to grow out of the story, often surprising me. Once I notice it, I might add more threads of it, but I don't start out by saying, "I'm going to write a book about loyalty now." I think some very talented authors are able to pull off a decent story despite such intentions -- but never because of them.”

I agree with every word of that insightful comment and I appreciate the distinction.

Let me give you an example of what a moral is, as I learned in a college creative class. In each episode of the old TV show, “Lassie,” Timmy would get into some kind of trouble, Lassie would save the day, and back in the family kitchen, Mom or Dad would sit Timmy down and tell him what he needed to learn from the events. “You see, Timmy, if you’d listened to me when I told you to avoid that abandoned shed, you never would have stepped on that rusty nail,” or, “You see, Timmy, when you don’t finish your chores, you end up neck-deep in quicksand,” or “You see, Timmy, not all black people are murderers.” Obviously this kind of instruction wasn’t terribly impactful, since Timmy continued in trouble for so many seasons.

If a person gets insight from a book, it’s so much more powerful if that person gleans their own message from the story itself rather than if the author offers a “You see, Timmy…” kind of summation. Like mb, I want my stories to ask questions, not force answers. I write stories that interest me, and what interests me most often is not ideas that are old and obvious, things I’m sure about, but things I’m unsure about. I write the story to understand, and I don’t want to force any conclusions I have on the reader, or I get in the way of the story. Writers who try to say what their story means are trying to seize more than their share of the storytelling, taking away from that 50% that is, in my opinion, the reader’s portion.

A theme, on the other hand, is the language of story--repeated ideas, threads of understanding, adding layers of depth. A story, I believe, should be fundamentally entertaining, but have substantial layers to explore beneath, if a reader is inclined to look. What your high school English teachers are trying to show you is that within the story itself, the author has woven questions and ideas that make the story more profound. Like mb, I never set out to write a story with a theme in mind, but as I’m writing, serendipity and grace lead me to interconnected ideas and repeated images that I began to tie together. Ack, you see how I end up talking in metaphors to try and explain!

Although I do think about themes as I write (even if I don’t think of them with that label necessarily) I am uncomfortable naming the themes in my own books. I prefer letting the reader do that. And often they won’t see the themes I struggled with, but find other themes that didn’t haunt me. That’s the magic of reading for me, and one reason why I think it’s unfortunate when someone tells a reader “You’re wrong” for what they took from the book. On one hand, in English class, you need to examine and prove your point from the text. In class, intuition is not evidence, nor should it be. But reading alone in your room, a story can inspire thoughts that aren’t in the actual text. While that may not be relevant for some English class papers, it is very cool, and one reason why I love to read.

But I fall back to the question, is an author responsible for the morals a reader takes from her book? Writing only about perfect characters who make good choices is boring--and unhelpful, really. It is instructive for me as a reader to read about characters who do things I wouldn’t and make mistakes. It’s a positive and enlightening way for me to think through it all without doing it. But when an author shows characters doing things, as a previous commentor said, that we would warn our our own child against, is that a problem? Is it okay as long as in the end we show the consequences of such actions? Not show the consequences in a didactic way, but in an honest way, a cause-and-effect way. Is the author the guardian of not only the story but what the story might teach?

In the last post, some commentors called me on using the phrase “it’s just a story,” (in a thoughtful and respectful way, I might add. Thank you.). I tried to put that phrase inside questions because I realize it’s a provocative phrase. Is there ever “just a story”? And what exactly is a story, its power, its inherent meaning? Worth considering, and perhaps the topic of a future post. I really appreciate all the great comments on this topic, because it’s not one I’m settled on myself. I think it’s complicated and abstract and worth thinking about.

How to be a reader: The moral of the story is…

An Amazon reviewer of Breaking Dawn, inside a passionate one-star review, explains how the problems Bella faces in the series get resolved in the end and then says, "So, girls don't worry. If you have problems, they will ALL work out. Is that what the author wants to tell her fans?"

Let me clarify that I don’t mean to criticize this particular reviewer or anyone who had problems with that book. I just find this example particularly fascinating and relevant to this discussion.

First of all, as a writer, I never sit down with a story and think, "Let's see, what do I want to teach my fans today?" Now some authors and some books force a message into the book, wrap a moral inside a story and kind of cram it down your throat. These books never work well. (I believe Stephenie Meyer is not that kind of author.) Any message that comes out of a good book will be the reader's call. You read the story, then your understanding, experience, and current need tells you your own personal message. Some might argue that “if you have problems, they will all work out” is a wonderful moral for a book. Others might argue that it’s unrealistic and too pat. It really depends on our personal experience, doesn’t it? Perhaps this reviewer has a current need to have a story express the devastation of life, the out-of-control destruction and confusion, and Breaking Dawn didn't do that for her. There are plenty of books out there that will deliver that message. Breaking Dawn isn't one. The reviewer had a very important, personal reaction to a story that is entirely valid for her, but be fair, it's not going to be valid for everyone. Your needs and reaction are personal--it's unrealistic to expect a book or author to deliver exactly the story you wanted.

Now trickier, I think, is answering this question: Is an author responsible for the morals a reader, especially a young reader, takes from her book?

I can say, I never write toward a moral. But then again, some writers do I read a fantasy trilogy a few years back. The first book was magnificent. But in the third book, I was shocked by how the author so obviously gave a moral to the story. It was a moral that I didn’t agree with, but even if I had, I’m very put off by a novel that asserts any moral. It wrecked the story for me. Later I read an interview with the author where he admitted writing the trilogy with the intent of teaching children about the dangers of x. This was shocking to me, and I think it’s rare. Most novelists are slaves to the story. It’s hard enough to write a book, let alone try to craft what it will mean to every reader and how it should instruct them how to view the world and live their lives. Nevertheless, I know that some writers do write toward a moral.

But whether a writer intends to moralize or not, are we responsible for any morals readers take from our books? I don’t know. In one way, I think writers who write for children especially need to be aware of what we’re saying and take care. On the other hand, I know there’s no possible way I can account for every way someone reads my books.

This has been on my mind recently as I’ve been writing this new book for adults, The Actor and the Housewife. The story centers around a married stay-at-home mother who meets and forms a friendship with a married male actor (and FYI, it’s not an austenland sequel, though it employs a similar narrative style). One of my early readers was concerned about the premise. Am I advocating friendships of married people of opposite genders? Am I encouraging behavior that can lead to adultery? Isn’t that dangerous? I took those concerns very seriously and thought and struggled with them for months. And ultimately I realized that I’m telling a story, and a story needs obstacles and problems. As a writer, I’m never trying to tell anyone how to live or even trying to make statements such as “friendships between married men and women are good!” As a writer, I’m trying to come up with an interesting story, and this story about two very opposite people (opposites in profession, belief, lifestyle, as well as gender) who somehow find common ground was fascinating to me. I’m interested in the characters and their journey, not the summation (I despise writing book summaries, avoid writing my own jacket text, and duck out of ever saying what my books mean). I write the story--the reader decides if there’s a moral. The moral the reader takes may be something about the importance of friendship, and they’ll decide that I am a like-minded and respectable person. Or the reader may read a different moral, such as “married men and woman should risk their marriages in order to be close pals,” and if they disagree with that idea, they could get offended (and write me angry emails). I had to come to the conclusion that the only way to prevent anyone from being offended by my books was to stop writing altogether.

Is J.K. Rowling teaching children how to be witches and wizards? Does Harry Potter encourage children to use swords and hide them in hats? Create secret societies in schools and defy authority? Set up elaborate pranks and drop out of school? Or is it just a story?

Is Stephenie Meyer telling girls that they should fall so deeply in love at age 17 that if their boyfriend leaves them, they should try to commit suicide? (and imitate the events of Breaking Dawn, which I won’t enumerate for spoiler reasons.) Or is it just a story?

Let’s assume that Rowling and Meyer are not moralizing but telling a story for entertainment. Are they still responsible for whatever morals a reader chooses to take? If a boy who read the Harry Potter series decides his principal is evil, sets off fireworks in school, and drops out to start a joke shop, is it Rowling’s fault? If a girl who has read Twilight is so distraught about a break up she attempts suicide, is it Meyer’s fault? (What if the girl has read Rome & Juliet too--is it also Shakespeare’s fault?)

Is the book powerful in and of itself, the carrier of a message that can change a reader’s life? Or is it just a story, and the reader is powerful by deciding if and how the book might change her life?

I think those who worry about what morals these books teach young people can sometimes sell them short. I don’t think young readers believe that they should emulate everything a character does, even if they identify with the character. I believe that they read a book, understand that it’s fiction, and take what they need from it. This doesn’t give writers for young readers free license to write dangerous and damaging stories, but I for one am not comfortable assigning where those lines are that we shouldn’t cross. I’ve talked about this before, but all I can do is try to live the best way I know how, and hope that as I try to write good stories that please my internal reader, good things will come through for other readers.

I don’t have absolute answers to these questions. But when I read, I try to assume that the other author, like me, isn’t trying to cram in a moral, but just trying to tell a story. And the power of moral is in my hands as the reader, whether to just enjoy the ride or find some nugget of truth that I can apply to my own life. For me, this attitude has created less stressful and more honest reading.

So the moral of this story is, when you assume, you turn the end of a verb into two pronouns. Or something. I’m interested in your thoughts on this sticky topic.

How to be a reader: Reviewing the review

When I didn’t like a book that others loved, I feel dumb. I wonder, what's wrong with me? Sometimes I'll go to amazon and read other reviews. The positive reviews help me to see what I was missing, but it’s nice for me to read the negative reviews too, just to see if anyone else had the same problems I did with the story. I personally never write negative reviews--if I don't like a book, I just don't review it, because there's enough to laud out there and I just don't groove with lots of negativity in my life. But I have found it comforting to read when others saw a story the same way I did. I think we’re all vulnerable creatures in some ways and don’t want to be alone. But it would be a mistake if I assumed that my negative reading of the book was the only valid one.

In the same vein, when I love a book, I like to go out and see what praise others are singing for it. I love to enjoy a book with others who felt the same way. The internet provides a wonderful platform for community, for finding other like minds.

It also creates an anonymity that makes it easy to act in a very different way than we would face-to-face. I've never yet experienced a rude fan who would come to me in person and say, "You suck. Your books are boring, I hate them..." and so on. And yet I've had a few emails or blog comments to that effect. For the emailer/commenter, it probably feels fairly innocuous because they're anonymous, just writing words on a screen. But on my end, the effect is the same as if someone had yelled that to my face. We're still figuring out this whole internet and email business, I think, but whenever we forget that those  usernames out there are fellow human beings, it's time to pull back and reevaluate. I would suggest this life code: never put into writing what you wouldn't say to someone's face. And after that: it might be time to question what you're willing to say to someone's face.

So, are negative reviews of a book important?

I’d say, yes. When I was younger, I didn’t feel like I had permission to dislike a book. If my teacher assigned a book, it was understood that this was a GREAT book. And if I didn’t like it, I felt ashamed and wondered what was wrong with me. I now believe that the reading experience is not all about the book or the reader, but a responsibility shared equally by both [see here and here]. So in some ways, I think it’s wonderful that people, especially young people, have a forum like the internet to express their opinions and learn to trust their own judgment. But the forum ceases to have value if we aren’t using this opportunity to learn how to express opinions in a productive way.

First let’s look at the purpose of reviews. Who is a book review for?

In my opinion, a book review is most assuredly not for the author. Never, in no way, absolutely not. Did I mention that it’s not? ‘Cause it’s not. I’ve blogged about this before, but for some this may be an alarming declaration. So lemme ‘splain.

Negative reviews are not helpful to a writer. Not everyone is going to like what you write, and there is no possible way to write something that will appeal to everyone's tastes. We're all individuals. A writer has to write a book to herself. That doesn't mean that writers shy from criticism. The rewrite process I go through with all my books would've made me weep and curl up into fetal position when I wasn't used to it. Many people read my manuscripts, including my editor, and with each draft give pages of notes about what is wrong with it and what doesn't work. I myself am a harsh editor of my own work. I spend months and years searching for ways I've failed with the story and for ways to improve it. I consider every criticism of the manuscript very seriously. It's an arduous, often painful, and completely essential process for writing the best book possible. The positive outcome of this torture is that by time each of my books is published, I feel very confident that it was the absolute best I could do and the story that I wanted to tell.

Although I’m pleased with it, not everyone will be. While negative reviews are inevitable, they're not instructive to the writer. At the worst, it throws me off, shakes my confidence so that writing that day or week is very hard. That's not the reviewer's fault, it's mine, but it may be why some writers avoid all reviews (I read what comes my way but don’t seek them out). It may be important for that reviewer to express their opinion, but that opinion is not helpful to me personally. The book is already published, there's nothing I can do to change it, and most likely I wouldn't change it if I could. I wrote the book that I wanted to read. Besides, I couldn't possibly listen to everyone. What some people loved, others hated. When people tell me things they don't like about my books, all I can do is acknowledge that they have every right to have that reaction, and then move on.

But doesn’t the negative review count as constructive criticism and help me improve as a writer for my future books? No, it doesn’t. This may be harder to explain. The writer Gene Wolfe said something like, “You never learn how to write a book--you only learn to write the book you're writing.” Writing a book (a unique book, not a formula book) is so complicated, I never learn how to do it. I’m struggling right now writing my tenth book as much as I did with my first. Post-publication criticism of river secrets, for example, isn't helpful to me in writing forest born. The criticism that applies to one doesn’t work for the other. It only serves to make me feel stupid. I've received some emails from (former) readers who were clearly not trying to give helpful feedback but rather doing their best to hurt me. It's not fun. I'm not sure why people do that. I guess they're hurting and they think they'll feel better if they hurt back. But those cases are rare--I believe the majority of negative feedback is meant well. However, I the author am not the ideal audience for it.

Positive reviews are not helpful to a writer, either. Strange perhaps, but true! I’m not going to lie to you--positive reviews absolutely lift my spirits and can give me new confidence to keep going with the book I’m working on at the moment. It is so lovely to see that the project I bled and sweated over is well received and discovered by like minds. And when the praise is born of kindness, those positive feelings are quite buoyant and can help me through rough patches. But it doesn’t actually make me a better writer. The praise is for a project already completed, and what I did well then doesn’t apply to what I’m doing now. Too much praise can turn into a burden, as with many writers who receive major awards for a book and then lose their confidence and don’t write another for fear of not measuring up. Don’t get me wrong--I’m not counseling you to stop writing positive reviews of beloved books or sending fan email to your favorite authors. This information isn’t meant for the reviewers, but the authors--never believe your own press. Both positive and negative reviews are inevitable for a published book, and authors know that we have to work to try to balance all that and not take in too much of either, lest we sink.

So, if a review is not meant for the writer of the book, then who?

Other readers, of course! (You knew that already, you are so smart.) [EDIT: Here I'm discussing personal reviews, such as anyone can post on amazon. Reviews in professional publications are often for librarians, booksellers, etc., as commenter Jen points out.] Potential readers can see if the book sounds like something they might like. Those who have already read the book can use the review to open up a discussion, discover nuances they missed, and so on. A review can turn the intimate experience of reading into a conversation that enlightens both sides.

That is, when it is a conversation. Here let me offer a second life code: try to express opinions as just that: opinions. And respectfully allow for disagreement. It hurts when people hate a book we loved. It feels like they don't just hate the book but hate us too. A loved book is so closely tied to our hearts, our personalities, when someone condemns that book it feels like they’re condemning us as people.

At the same time, it feels lousy when a book we abhor, others adore. It can make us feel like outsiders, idiots. And worse if we don’t like a book and those fans of it tell us we’re dumb for disliking it. We’re not dumb--just different. And no need to try and make the others feel dumb either. Say there’s a guy who has a crush on you, but you just don’t like him. Does that mean he’s unworthy of love, unlovable, and that anyone else who likes him is an idiot? Of course not! You two weren’t right together, but surely you’ll be happy for him if he finds love elsewhere. I think that metaphor works rather well, actually. I think it’s so important to acknowledge that every reading experience is unique--no book exists in a vacuum. A story is half the book, half the reader. We can claim our own reading experience and still allow others theirs.

To sum up: book reviews are intended for fellow readers; writers must work to, keep ourselves unaffected by both positive and negative reviews; and acknowledging opinion and expressing it respectfully on or offline will make the warm and fuzzies multiply like tribbles. So, tribble away, my friends. Tribble away.

How to be a reader: How becoming an author changed me as a reader

Speculation

Recently I attended a neighborhood book club (my first). We read a book by a male author writing a female main character. It was in my opinion a wonderful book and deservedly a best seller. It was full of warmth and insight into the human condition, and written skillfully. There was one scene that really stuck out to me, though, because the main character acted in a way I couldn't account for, a way that was very different than her past behavior. I brought up this scene with the ladies to ask why they thought the author wrote that scene. One of the ladies said, "Well, he's a man. He probably just doesn't understand women."

She certainly meant no harm, but for some reason I was so smacked by that I couldn't even respond. The book was well done--surely we owed the author enough to assume he made that choice with thought and  purpose. I realized that in book clubs across the country, my choices were likely summarily dismissed. Every time I've read a review of one of my books from a dissatisfied reader and they've speculated why I failed with that book, their assumptions have been completely wrong. I've encountered this dozens of times, but here are just a couple of examples:

Speculation: "Austenland stinks. Shannon Hale clearly rushed through this one."
Truth: I worked on that book for seven years, my longest period for one book, and didn't try to sell it until I had it rewritten and polished to where I was satisfied with it.
Speculation: "Shannon Hale is jumping on the graphic novel bandwagon when it's popular to try and cash in."
Truth: We started working on rapunzel's revenge years ago, when I had no idea children's publishers were interested in graphic novels and would soon be publishing them. And this is no cash cow. We split royalties with the illustrator, so I'll earn half as much as I do with my prose novels. It truly was a labor of love.

For me, the kindest and also most honest way of living is to give people the benefit of the doubt. Say you happen to love three books by an author but not her fourth. There are many people who love it, and others who don't. The fact that some people love it seems to suggest that the book didn't fail utterly--just with some readers. That doesn't change the fact that it didn't jive with you, and that's okay. But why not just assume that the writer still did her best by her own internal reader? After all, given the history, that's the most likely conclusion, and it's also the kinder one.

Kindness aside, giving authors the benefit of the doubt makes us better readers. Instead of dismissing a scene or character or plot device that rubs us wrong, we might ask, Why did the author make that choice? Reading it as a carefully intended choice rather than as a mistake gives us the chance to explore the story and discover connections and wisdom we might have otherwise tossed aside. When I haven't loved a book, I really enjoy talking with someone who did and hearing how they read it. Quite often, my opinion changes about the book. My own reading experience with it wasn't great, but seeing it from someone else's perspective helps me appreciate it after the fact.

Don't believe everything you read

Often people will blog about a book event after the fact. Almost every time I've read on a blog what other people reported  I said, it's been wrong. Sometimes very wrong. "There's no way I said that, I don't even believe that!" I don't think any of the bloggers were trying to misquote me. They heard and took from my comments what they wanted or needed to hear, and then wrote that down, believing it was accurate. This is very common. It has taught me to be very skeptical about second hand (and especially third hand) reporting.

By the same token, please hesitate before judging me or my books by something I said in an interview. They are quite often not to be trusted. I wish I could only do written interviews, so I could make sure the words truly are what I spoke. Magazines and newspapers often do phone or live interviews. Sometimes we'll talk for an hour and they'll whittle it down to a couple of minutes worth of information. Often they ask leading questions, trying to get you to say something sensational or to speak to the topic they want to write about. This was especially common when austenland came out. Everyone had opinions about why Austen was still read and why the continued craze. They wanted me to say something to support their own opinion, so they would toss out 90% of what I said and quote the part that worked for their story (and usually not word-for-word since it was over the phone and they didn't record me, just took notes). I don't mean to cast blame--this is just how it works. But again, it's taught me that when I hear second hand something troubling that someone says, to take with a grain of salt, especially when I've had cause to respect that person in the past.

Copy editing

When I turn in my polished manuscript, it then goes to a copy editor, who checks it for grammatical errors, typos, etc. We depend on them to be thorough, but sometimes they're sadly not. After we fix all the found errors, the manuscript gets typeset. In the transfer from, say, a Microsoft Word document to  Quark, scads of errors happen. It's inevitable. Another copy editor is supposed to go through it again and correct those errors. Some are better at their job than others. The author has no direct control over this part of the process. Sadly, it's my name on the cover, and I'm accountable for all the errors in a book, whether or not I caused them. Understanding how it works has made me much more sympathetic to authors whose books are riddled with typos and such.

Next post: reviewing books. And for those interested, I commented on the previous post with my POV about a certain leaked manuscript.

How to be a reader: Author responsibility

Well, I think the last post and the comments that followed were a perfect example to illustrate what I was talking about. We had over 100 comments (many were deleted due to their inflammatory nature) presenting many diverse opinions. Some said they'd never read my books but based on that post were going to now. At least one former fan said he/she was a fan no more based on the same thing. Some said they loved the post, some said it was boring and pointless. Some agreed vehemently, others disagreed just as vehemently. And everyone was responding to the exact same words. That's the power of personal interpretation.

And on to part 2, which many of you vigilante readers have guessed, is about the author's responsibility. Hopefully glimpsing my side of the equation will edify and enrich your own reading experience.I'm going to lay out my own opinion. Feel free to agree or disagree, but I ask you do so respectfully and without attacking me, other commenters, or any other party. If you have loads to say, it might work best to post it on your own blog and put a briefer comment here with a link to your blog. And please remember, no spoilers, though I don't know why that would come up in this topic.

So, does an author have a responsibility to her fans?

First off, in my opinion, a writer/reader relationship cannot and should not be subject to the same kinds of rules in a business relationship. In business, you are always thinking about the client, trying to figure out what the market wants and needs, working to keep the customer happy. This is smart business. But in any creative art, trying to follow that model would not only be quixotic but dishonest. Does anyone really want art that is created purely to please the masses? I think about Dark Knight, a movie hugely popular with both fans and critics. That was made from a unique vision. It was written and directed by an artist and went against many movie conventions of that genre. It worked not because it was designed to please the masses, following previous conventions, but because it followed the writer/director’s unique vision. We've all seen movies that are make with a board room mentality, and they stink. In creative arts, we don’t want to be pandered to by someone trying desperately to please us in order to get our money.

I think I have talked about this before, but there is no way that I can think about fans when I write. I don't write for my fans. I would be absolutely terrified of putting down a single word if I tried to think about what my fans wanted or what I owe them as an author. I cannot write to anyone outside myself--if I tried, it would be a horrible story, flat and lifeless. I write to myself. That's the only person I'm trying to please. And if that sounds like a cop-out, please understand that I am my own toughest critic. No one could be harder on me, my writing style, my storytelling ability, my ideas, anything, than I am on myself. I am ruthless (often painfully so--ask my husband). And I have a tough editor and others who read for me. I take their feedback extremely seriously and I rewrite myself to death. It's the only insurance I have against the inevitable criticism that follows any book publication.

Every professional novelist I know feels the same way--we have to write to ourselves and shut off the outside voices. If any writer claims to write to her fans first, I would be first, skeptical, and second, wary. We've probably all read books that aren't written to the author's internal reader, and they have that board room feel, more like an advertisement than true story. Books like that just don't work.

Now that doesn't mean I don't hope that I please my fans. I do. Desperately. Embarrassingly so, perhaps. And if I was really sure what my fans wanted out of a story, even if it wasn't what I wanted, I'd be tempted to write it to them. I've learned, however, that you can never know. As a writer, you have to trust yourself. That is so hard to do, but an absolute necessity. On example: when I wrote Princess Academy, I was pretty sure no one would like it, especially the ending. But I worked very hard to turn off those fears and the desire to second guess what readers want, and I wrote it to my internal reader. I remember doing book signings when it first came out and trying to talk people out of buying it, suggesting they read Goose Girl instead. Now, as I mentioned last post, Princess Academy has turned out to be my most popularly successful, as well as critically lauded, book. If I'd tried to write to the fans, or to what I thought the fans wanted, that book would have fallen flat on its face and disappeared. And it was also possible that the story that pleased my internal reader wouldn't please anyone else. But that was the risk I had to take.

I owe it to myself to write the very best story possible. If I mess up, it's my name on the book, not my fans'. I'm the one who has to live with my mistakes and regret them every day and cringe at the thought of people reading them. It will be my humiliation.

Besides the humiliation factor, there is profound motivation for an author to always do her best. Say I publish a book that I rush through, that I don't feel good about but I think, well, I'm feeling lazy this year, it's good enough. Ack! (Really, even the thought of that makes sensations of cold run down my legs.) Then my fans will be disappointed and won't buy any more of my books. If I have a hope in maintaining a career, I need to keep doing my best, never taking it for granted, working just as hard on each book, and trying to live as best I can, being a genuine person, opening myself up to people and to new ideas, reading good books, and in every way nurturing my internal reader so I can keep telling good stories. Other professional novelists I know feel the same way.

I know it's a risk reading a book. You're being asked to trust an author in order to fall into a story. In the hands of a good writer, that can be an amazing experience. In the hands of a lousy writer, that can feel violating. (And by "good" I mean "good for your own internal reader" and "bad" I mean "bad for your own internal reader". There is no way I could brand any book or writer as good or bad in any absolute terms.) But happily in our world we have libraries, and the reader can sample for free most any book without having to pay for it. No one is obligated to buy in order to read. That alone, I think, hugely affects the writer/reader dynamic. (FYI--if your library doesn’t have a book you want to read, you can request that they order it.)

In the reading relationship, the reader has as much power as the writer, I believe. You choose the stories you want to read, you choose how quickly you read, when you read, if you keep reading, if you reread. You visualize the characters, the story, the sounds and smells and feelings. You take lifeless words and bring them to life. You're like the director of the movie, taking the raw words of a script and blowing them up into full color on the screen. To a large extent, a movie viewer is merely a witness to the story, but a reader is a participant in the story. This is what makes reading such a profoundly intimate experience, so unique reader-to-reader, and also so powerful.

Now I can only speak for myself, but I can tell you I never publish a book that hasn't gone through the ringer until it absolutely pleases my internal reader. That's the only guarantee I can give you--that I am happy with this book. I have no idea if you will be. When a reader doesn't like a book from an author whose previous books they adored, often speculation ensues: well, she must have cut corners, she must have been lazy, she worked hard on those other books but this one she let flop. I think these speculations are only natural, but they are also fundamentally flawed. If the author says this too is a book born from her internal reader and the best one she could create, then I think it wise to accept that. She's done her part, she's done her best. And the readers don't have to like it or ever buy another book of hers again. But in my opinion, that relationship has been fulfilled. It's very sad for both parties when the fan is dissatisfied, but that's how it works in the creative arts. (More on speculation next post in part 3…)

As writers, we take frightening risks in writing something people might despise, but we put it out there and hope for the best. Readers too take risks whenever we turn ourselves over to an artist's vision. Sometimes we’re disappointed, but in my opinion, it's worth the risk.

So, I write to my internal reader--you read to see if my internal reader and your internal reader are kindred spirits. If they're not, we go our separate ways. If they are, then what connection, what serendipity, what joy! We get to tell a story together.

How to be a reader: Reader responsibility

When I visit elementary schools, I often have this kind of interaction with kids.
"Who here doesn't like to read?"
lots of raised hands
"Why not?"
Most common answer--books are boring.
"It's true, some books are boring. Let me ask you this, if a book is boring, whose fault is that--your fault or the book's fault?"
The book's fault!
"That's right! It shouldn't have been so boring. The good news is, there are precisely one billion gagillion and five books out there to choose from, so it's easy to find books that aren't boring for you."
Then we talk about how to find the right book for you.

I believe this. When you're starting out, first learning how to read and ready to fall in love with reading, negative reading experiences are in no way the reader's fault. But then we grow up, mature as readers, learn how to read a book, and gain more responsibility for our reading experience. Or we should.

I've watched a curious phenomenon recently unfold, as some passionate fans of the Twilight books read Breaking Dawn (the fourth book in that series, and a book that I adored) and blamed the author when they didn't like it. Not just blamed. It's turned into an online hatefest. I've never seen the like and it's been very disturbing to me. And it's gotten me thinking--is it the author's fault if you don't like one of her books?

There are some lazy writers out there. There are very poor writers who somehow get published. But for the most part, every novel in your bookstore was written by a passionate person who wrote the very best book she could and told the story the best way she could for herself. It's only natural that not everyone will like it. But I think it's safest to assume that any writer told the story she wanted to hear. I know I always do. I poured as much of myself, time, energy, skill, and anxiety into enna burning (my least popular book) as I did in princess academy (my most popular book). Of course not everyone will like them equally, but all I can do is write the stories I want to hear and then put them out there and see what other people think.

So, when you like one book by an author but not another, that's okay. But perhaps it's safest to assume she still did her best. Blaming her entirely for your bad experience is not only fruitless, it's just plain wrong. Why? Let's discuss.

Have you ever reread a book and had a completely different reaction to it than you did the first time? Love turning to hate, confusion to understanding, or disappointment to heart-stopping glee? Not one word of that book changed. You did. In high school I read The Stranger and felt as if my world had been turned upside-down. In college I reread it and found the story flat and uninteresting, and walked away untouched and baffled by my younger reaction. My understanding of the world, my fears, my needs had changed, and so the story changed. The words Camus wrote remained the same; nevertheless, the story completely changed in my mind. Camus didn't do that--I did that.

I've always believed that as an author, I do 50% of the work of storytelling, and the reader does the other 50%. There's no way I can control the story you tell yourself from my book. Your own experiences, preferences, prejudices, mood at the moment, current events in your life, needs and wants influence how you read my every word. I wish I could write a story that would appeal to everyone, but that is so impossible. I think most authors know we have to write a story to our own internal reader. We can please ourselves--that's the only control we have.

You are half of the story. But in order to participate, you need to give up some control. You can't force the characters do say different things, do different things, be different people--you can only control your own interpretation and reaction to them. You need to allow the author to tell the story she's trying to tell. It may not be a good story, it may not be your kind of story, but if you don't try to play along, you're not giving the story a chance. And in the end you might not like it--there are an infinite number of reasons why this might be. But the author didn't fail you--the author just wrote a story that didn't click with your internal reader at this point in your life. You are responsible for half of that story. So you go find the next book, the next author that works for you, and as a team, you and the author tell a new story together.

I think by understanding our responsibilities as readers, we can have more successful and interesting encounters with the books we read. When a story fails you, half of the responsibility is your own. And when a story sings to you, is beautiful, enchanting, exciting, life changing, inspiring--again, half of the praise is due to you.

You are powerful. Claim your power. Own it. And use it wisely.

EDIT: Sept. 1, 3:30pm
Whew! Well, did I open a can of worms? I have a feeling if I had left out those two words "Breaking Dawn" from this post, I'd have about 65 fewer comments. If you want to leave a comment, please observe our blog rules:

• Express your opinion whatever it may be, but do so respectfully and without insult to those who disagree. Squeetus will delete or edit comments that, in our opinion, cross that line.
• Refrain from mentioning any spoilers
• Please read the previous comments before making your own
• Do not attack any person, be she author, commenter, or yourself. Please remember that we are all human beings.

And again, this post is not about whether or not you liked Breaking Dawn or what faults or praise you found in it. There are many places on the web where you can discuss that to your heart's content. And  whatever you say, please be kind, you lovely people! We are all bound to disagree and often, so let's do it with aplomb, graciousness, and humanity.