Writing Right with Dmitri: Why Read, Why Write?
Created | Updated Sep 16, 2018
Writing Right with Dmitri: Why Read, Why Write?
Is 'reading' good for you?
It depends on what you read, I suppose. And when. And why. And how. And….
In this article, called 'Reading Literature Won’t Give You Superpowers', writer Joseph Frankel points out that a previous study that claimed a connection between reading 'literary' texts and improved empathy has proven to be irreproducible. I'm not very surprised: I've been in far too many literature departments to accept that claim. The author goes on to make some excellent points, which I hope you'll read. Especially the one about the Nazis who enjoyed Goethe. Goethe wouldn't have enjoyed the Nazis, which I think is worth pondering over.
People read for a lot of reasons: to get information, for relaxation, for mental escape, to stimulate their own thinking, to confirm their prejudices, to feel virtuous (I'm thinking of both Bible studies and book clubs here), to know what other people are talking about, to pass a test, to join the 'literary elite', etc, etc, etc. The variety of reasons to read leads to a variety of literary genres, types of texts, and reasons for writing. The question for us is, why do we write? Does it matter?
Yes, it does. A whole lot. Why we're writing determines what we write. And what kind of effort we put into it. And how we tailor our messages to our readers.
Take the person who writes a diary or journal. They may privately hope that, like Samuel Pepys, they will influence the thoughts of future generations. They may be planning to leave these gems in their wills to bless the as-yet-unborn millions. Or they may just do it for the exercise. At any rate, they aren't writing for their contemporaries. So their thoughts will be private, perhaps very frank. And, quite probably, their writing will be pretty self-involved. Nobody is quite so self-involved as the writer who is writing for an audience of one: the writer him/herself. Or an imaginary audience consisting of people who think exactly like the writer.
Anyone who writes for a contemporary, and real, audience, does not have this luxury. Sure, you privately think that every thought that flows from your brain to your fingers is a deathless pearl of wisdom, profound and perfect in its initial utterance. All those nay-sayers are nitpickers. They're just jealous. Also, they are just plain wrong. But you know what? If you want people to read what you write, you're going to have to pander to them. Whoever 'they' are.
People who write for 'little' magazines write for a like-minded coterie of people who are self-selected by their fondness for reading 'little' magazines. Most people who write pulp fiction started out reading pulp fiction – and probably decided they could do better. That's not a bad reason to write, by the way. Sometimes I write a story because I haven't read one that said what I wanted to say. Or I make up a song lyric because none of the songs I'd heard recently expressed the feeling I was having.
You probably should write the kind of thing you like to read. After all, if you read it, others must have. There must be a readership out there. You will have something in common with them. Does horror float your boat? Plenty of potential readers out there. Do you enjoy poetry? Okay, there are fewer of you. But you'll still find some.
Reading and writing are connected: there's a pact between writers and readers. It's an interactive activity – unless, as I said, you're writing a diary. That's not so much interactive as an exercise where the reader is an imaginary friend. But if you've got readers, you've got interactivity. Readers don't dictate writing, not even if the writing is commercial. But readers, and their expectations, do influence writing. After all, you have to communicate with them. You have to use language they understand, tropes with which they are familiar, arguments they can follow.
Can you choose your audience? Of course. You write for people who will enjoy what you write. Of course, you can't necessarily find the audience you want in the venue of your choice. Writers who are dying to commit fan fiction would do well to seek out a website that specializes in that particular fandom. There's absolutely no sense barging onto the gluten-free forum and trying to preach the gospel of Pokemon, or talk the cooking site's users into falling in love with animated children's films. That's why those people who hire shills to post thinly-veiled adverts in fora are wasting their time along with the website's admins'.
Can you interest readers on h2g2 in whatever you're interested in? Very probably. h2g2 Researchers are interested in just about everything. After all, our motto is 'Life, the Universe, and Everything.' You can write about anything here – as long as you make it clear and interesting. That means keeping your audience in mind. We don't know that reading more makes them more empathetic. Or better people. We do know that writing makes us better at communicating, and fills some need or other that we have. Or that we do it for the exercise. One thing we know, too: if we aren't interesting, people won't read. And you can't make 'em read by saying, 'It's good for you'. No matter what the 'scientists' think.
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