I came across a post the other day where a (published) author was asking his readers what they thought about the amount of violence and torture and unpleasant deaths occurring in a fantasy novel. The one he was currently writing contained a lot of graphic detail and he wanted to know whether he should tone it down.
A number of his respondents to his blog said things which amounted to: “It’s your book and you should stay true to yourself/to your tale.”
I am not so sure it is that simple.
Yes, there are times when an author needs to stand up for what they believe in, or for the demands of their story – but we want also to be published. We want publishers to make a profit so that they will give us another contract. We want our readers to be delighted with our novels so that they will buy the next one. We want to give reading pleasure to other people. (Besides, praise feeds our voracious egos!)
I look upon the publication of a book of mine as a sort of unwritten contract between me and the reader: the reader pays money, some of which ultimately gets to me, and I write the best book I can in return, so as not to disappoint. The trouble is…what defines “the best” I can do?
Well, it doesn’t mean that I deliberately write a story based on what I think will please my audience – you know, “Let’s throw in a bit of gratuitous sex here just to perk things up even if uit has nothing to do with the plot”. It doesn’t mean, “Let’s tone down the anti-religious tone of this story otherwise it will upset the Christians in the audience”, as seems to have happened with the filming of Pullman’s Golden Compass.
But on the other hand, a writer who doesn’t consider his audience and try to please them – within the bounds of his storyline and themes – seems a bit arrogant to me. “Here, this is my book, and I don’t give a damn what you think about it. And don’t you dare criticize it, either. It’s my book and I’ll darn well write what I like.” It is an attitude that surfaces in the occasional very successful author from time to time.
I guess it’s all about balance in the end.
What do you think?
Oddly enough, the author mentioned above left the violence in, but not because of an arrogant attitude to those who would read his book. In fact, he was uneasy about the level of violence himself. He left it in because others told him to do so … in other words, to please the readers.
Kota Belud is a town just to the north of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. It is chiefly famous for its Sunday market, but the area is also supposed to be a bird sanctuary because of its extensive wetlands and ricefields, a favoured stopover for migratory waterbirds.
We went birdwatching there just before we returned to Kuala Lumpur.
I am always tempted when I see such places to buy everything and let them go. I never do, because in the end that just encourages the trade, and a conservationist has to put the greater good of the species before the individual animal. But it hurts. It hurts for days. And were these folk locals, doing what they have done for generations? Nope. They were from Malacca.
We stopped to watch some farmers harvesting rice. The harvester circled around the padi field, making an island of the ripened rice in the middle of the field. A couple of boys, the oldest about twelve, ran around the edges of the newly cut crop with a dog. At first we thought they were playing. They certainly seem to be enjoying themselves, but it was hard to see what they were up to, as we were a long way off. And then we realised: they were catching what looked to be Slatey-breasted Rails. (That’s a bird, you non-birders out there, a type of ‘ruak’, waterhen-like, the size of a bantam hen.) These birds can fly, but their preferred desire to run and hide betrays them. The boys and the dog were too quick.
Sometimes birds look at windows and see the reflection of the sky. Which is unfortunate, because they then think they can fly through the glass…