They’re Not Stupid, Ma’am
It’s about time for a good old-fashioned writing wank, isn’t it? It’s been too long. I’ve been writing about family and cooking and cleaning and the Chihuahua of Real Life. (Short aside: I was listening to an old mix CD this morning and have rediscovered my conclusion that Joan Osborne rocks. Totally. Also on this mix CD is Jewel’s Under the Water, which is Muse crack like nobody’s business.)
I happened across May’s short but thought-provoking post about “readers are not stupid.” Her Muse is screaming it, and May realises the Muse is right. Spoon-feeding Readers will get your book hurled across the room in a hurry–faster, in fact, than just about anything else.
There is tremendous pressure to spoon-feed. The publishing industry doesn’t think readers are stupid per se; it just wants a Sure Thing. There’s a temptation to see a novel of spoon-fed pablum as something so inoffensive it can’t help but succeed. Inoffensive and easy mean it should appeal to the largest number of people, right? And if it appeals, they’ll buy it and the publisher will recoup its initial outlay. Right?
Right?
Well, mostly wrong. As Elizabeth Bear points out, it’s an artist’s duty to “get the blood on the page.” (Whole other discussion down that road. Stay on track, Lili.) In order to have a believable bloodspatter, you can’t dis your reader’s intelligence. Readers like to figure things out for themselves. They like to be surprised and pleasantly bamboozled. The greatest trick in being a writer is like being a stage magician: take something ordinary, make it vanish in plain sight, and bring it back. The trick that is too transparent fails to enchant. (A little Prestige humor for you there.)
Treating the reader as stupid (or even unintelligent, or needing to be shielded from the harsher realities of life) is like shooting yourself in the foot. I mean, come on. Hamlet doesn’t end happily, and we can see him heading for a train wreck, though Shakespeare doesn’t hold our hands and explain in two-syllable baby words why he does what he does. (Describing what he’s going to do in iambic pentameter doesn’t count.) The Last Unicorn (thank you, Bear) doesn’t “end happily” either, and there’s a lot in that book that a Faithful Reader must figure out for him- or herself. We know Schmendrick’s problem is letting go and letting the magic come through him. He doesn’t figure it out until the end. That’s a very universal human thing–who among us has not seen the mote in our friend’s eye better than the beam in our own?
Readers do not want to be coddled. (At least, no reader I’ve discussed this with, including Yours Truly, claims to want it.) Coddling can happen in two ways: the simplistic telling instead of showing, or the highly academic and technical weighting of a book with long involved words that show Just How Smart Teh Author Is–Smarter, In Fact, Than Thee. Either way is a copout, and Readers, especially Faithful Readers, hate a copout.
Now, I do occasionally read comfort-food books where there’s a degree of hand-holding. But that great sin is usually balanced out by a fantastic concept, or great dialogue, or something else that makes the book worth reading despite my irritation at a writer who seems to think I’m daft.
A story does not have to be explained to be understood. Look at fairy tales. We never question why Bluebeard kills his wives, or why the gingerbread witch wants to eat children (what else does a monster do when it catches you? as Stephen King points out.) The mistake plenty of most writers make is thinking that explanation breeds understanding. Anyone who has ever dealt with a determined-to-be-angry teenager can tell you all the explanation in the world sometimes only makes things worse. I’m not saying that explanation is bad, just that it should be used judiciously. Don’t explain when showing the effects will do. Don’t ever explain because you think the readers are stupid. They’re not.
In most cases, including my own, readers are smarter than thee, dear writer. Readers sniff out bullshit like a Southern Baptist mamma smells damnation. They will correct your grammar, your history, your ballistics, and your Russian (thank you, Ms. Yusova. The upcoming short story is, in fact, due to your gentle correction. *grin*). They will catch the most meaningless and the most intentional of errors. They will ask questions and wait for answers with bated breath. Readers hate copouts because they’re smarter than copouts, dammit, and if they’re going to spend good money on your book the least you can do is not insult their intelligence.
Writers have a few duties–duties to the Muse, for one. The Muse hates a copout as much as a Reader does. We have a duty to ourselves, to keep strong and healthy enough to stare unflinching into the heart of a story without punking out. We have a duty to our readers, to tell a ripping good story. And we have a duty to the story itself, (which amounts to the duty to the readers) that wondrous thing that chooses us to tell it. As simply and wonderfully as possible, with the fewest flaws we can manage.
Oh, and we should have fun. It’s hard to have a grand old time when you’re wondering if someone else is too unintelligent to understand your characters. Let your characters show themselves the way we learn about each other–by seeing what they do. That’s a far more rollicking rollercoaster ride than the baby duck pond. Strap yourselves in, dear writers, and take that big scary rollercoaster.
I promise it’ll be okay. You might even thank me for it. And the Readers will (almost) certainly thank you.
