Will Self: "I Don't Write For Readers"

James D. Macdonald said:

One common way in which stories go wrong is what we call the "head story." The story is in the writer's head, not on the page.

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Well, luckily my stories make it from my head to my editors' emailholes.

... writing for yourself and then editing for readers seems like a wise way to go, as someone let me in on, which is the general opinion in this thread as I've come to learn.

With my previous "big-name-author-influence," that again was just me being a bit cynical. Most all of you are beyond that and I don't really believe you'd be prey to such. But again, I can't help being cynical at times. It's in my nature, though not as much as formerly. One day I hope to eliminate it entirely. Yeah right ;-)

Being a part of a group like this with a whole range of perspectives helps broaden ones outlook. A good thing, imo.

Having said that, I might suggest that it'd be good of us all to be a bit more lenient with one another. (Not talking about anyone in particular or any particular post.) Even if someone says something outlandish that'd be a fair policy. Of course they can be called on it, but after that it'd be good to leave it at that. Outlandish opinions are sometimes insightful. They get one thinking about one's own views, aggressively challenging them in a way.

Sorry for the harangue. Back to my one sentence posts >>

Ken said:

... writing for yourself and then editing for readers seems like a wise way to go, as someone let me in on, which is the general opinion in this thread as I've come to learn.

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I really like this. I began writing fan-fiction before my own stuff. And the only reason I wrote fan-fiction was because I was waiting for the sequel, and I was getting impatient. So I started making up my own story, and wrote it down.

After that, I came up with my own ideas, and so wrote it down. I write, so that I can go back and read it myself. If there's a story you want to read, and you can't find it, write it yourself. That's my opinion. And that's how I've started writing. I wanted to read a type of story, I couldn't find one I liked, so I started writing it myself.

So yes, I write for me. I love reading my own stuff. But I like 'edit for the reader'. That is great point

I think there needs to be a compromise. There are writers this works for because their style brings in readers as it is, but sometimes it is hard for readers to get used to.

Robert Browning used to write for himself and not put any of his own life into his work which angered many people. Stopford A. Brooke said this about him, which I thought was a pretty harsh criticism, but fair:

“A poet has no right to be so indifferent, so careless of clearness in his art, I might almost say, so lazy. Browning is negligent to a fault, almost to impertinence. The great poets put the right words in the right places […] Browning continually puts his words into the wrong places. He leaves out words necessary for the easy understanding of the passage, and for no reason except his fancy […] This is irritating except to folk who like discovery of the twister rather than poetry; and it is quite needless. It is worse than needless, for it lowers the charm and dignity of poetry.”

Coop720 said:

I think there needs to be a compromise. There are writers this works for because their style brings in readers as it is, but sometimes it is hard for readers to get used to.

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But this has nothing to di with a particular style.

Coop720 said:

I think there needs to be a compromise. There are writers this works for because their style brings in readers as it is, but sometimes it is hard for readers to get used to.

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There is no need for compromise because it suggests that some writers should change the way they approach their stories. Different writers approach their writing in vastly different ways. That's all that needs to be said. There is no one best path to our destination, even though that destination is similar for all of us. As long as we write good stories, why should we do anything to change our method just because another successful writer does it in a very different way? I will always write for my Reader. Others don't think that same way when they write. Different is not synonymous with bad.

CJ.Wolfe said:

I really like this. I began writing fan-fiction before my own stuff. And the only reason I wrote fan-fiction was because I was waiting for the sequel, and I was getting impatient. So I started making up my own story, and wrote it down.

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... you're not the first person I've read about who said they got their start with fan-fic. Sounds like a good way to get into writing and get a handle on things.

Coop720 said:

Robert Browning used to write for himself and not put any of his own life into his work which angered many people. Stopford A. Brooke said this about him, which I thought was a pretty harsh criticism, but fair:

“A poet has no right to be so indifferent, so careless of clearness in his art, I might almost say, so lazy. Browning is negligent to a fault, almost to impertinence. The great poets put the right words in the right places […] Browning continually puts his words into the wrong places. He leaves out words necessary for the easy understanding of the passage, and for no reason except his fancy […] This is irritating except to folk who like discovery of the twister rather than poetry; and it is quite needless. It is worse than needless, for it lowers the charm and dignity of poetry.”

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Never read any of Browning, but I do listen to Thelonious Monk. He intentionally left out notes. Lots of them. And his songs are sublime. I can almost guarantee you that no author sets about being obscure just to be obscure. They've got their reasons. Good ones, which may just be based on a feeling of how things should be. That doesn't make them any less valid. They're following their own path and being honest.

And here's a somewhat relevant question to ask.

When we read, can we tell if the writer wrote for themselves first or their reader first? Several have made the claim that if you write for the reader they can just tell and to that I have to ask....how? How can you tell?

I can't think of one book that I've read that when I closed it at the end I thought to myself 'well, clearly the writer was writing for the reader and not him(her)self'.

I mean, has any writer gone on record as saying one way or the other (other than Mr. Self)?

bearilou said:

And here's a somewhat relevant question to ask.

When we read, can we tell if the writer wrote for themselves first or their reader first? Several have made the claim that if you write for the reader they can just tell and to that I have to ask....how? How can you tell?

I can't think of one book that I've read that when I closed it at the end I thought to myself 'well, clearly the writer was writing for the reader and not him(her)self'.

I mean, has any writer gone on record as saying one way or the other (other than Mr. Self)?

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It's an interesting question - because it would be impossible to know, wouldn't it? Because trade published books, and probably a huge percentage of self-published books as well, would have gone through an outside-view editing process at some stage, which usually would have been done with the reader in mind. I don't think I'd be game to hazard a guess.

bearilou said:

And here's a somewhat relevant question to ask.

When we read, can we tell if the writer wrote for themselves first or their reader first? Several have made the claim that if you write for the reader they can just tell and to that I have to ask....how? How can you tell?

I can't think of one book that I've read that when I closed it at the end I thought to myself 'well, clearly the writer was writing for the reader and not him(her)self'.

I mean, has any writer gone on record as saying one way or the other (other than Mr. Self)?

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And with this interesting question, remember that writing for the reader is very different than writing for the market. So it would beg two questions instead of one. No...three questions: Can you tell that writer A writes for the reader? Can you tell that writer B writes for the market? Can you tell that writer C writes for him/herself? (After all, this last one is not a default situation.)

NeuroFizz said:

And with this interesting question, remember that writing for the reader is very different than writing for the market. So it would beg two questions instead of one. No...three questions: Can you tell that writer A writes for the reader? Can you tell that writer B writes for the market? Can you tell that writer C writes for him/herself? (After all, this last one is not a default situation.)

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As I was sitting here sipping at my coffee, this occurred to me as well.

To answer my own question of writing for the reader, one author popped up in my head: James Patterson. Then I had to wonder, is he (or his stable of writers) writing for the reader or are they writing for the market? I know how it appears, I can see how it would be interpreted as writing for the market...but are they?

I just realized something.

The thing about writing is that, in a way, all writing is about shaping the experience of the reader. Why create sympathetic characters? So the reader will be invested in them. Why avoid infodumps? Because they bore the reader. Why start the story with a hook? So the reader will immediately be dragged in.

So there are two ways to "write for readers".

1. Writing a story designed to enthrall a reader. This means paying attention to characterization, plot, pacing, worldbuilding, prose, dialogue, etc.

2. Writing because you want someone to read it. To someone like this, it is important that their stories get out there, not matter what. They gain satisfaction from knowing that their stories touched someone.

Writers in the first category may not care whether or not anyone else actually gets around to reading their story, but they still care about the craft. They write for readers in the sense that the craft is all about creating the best possible reading experience.

On the other hand, you have writers who don't belong to the first category and do belong to the second one. They don't worry about the purple hue of their prose or the flatness of their protagonists, but they do want others to read their work.

Those who belong to neither category are the types who write more for personal therapy. They write a little poetry in their notebook when they're feeling bad and don't worry about writing as a craft much at all.

Those who belong to both want to impove their craft and aren't fully satisfied until they get their work into the hands of others.

And that is my theory.

Marilynne Robinson's books (esp Gilead) read as though there was no book there at all - just you and the moment. I find them totally immersive. I wouldn't be surprised to find that, if she does keep the reader in mind during the writing, it's with a very light hold - but I'll bet every dollar in my pocket that there's some premium-grade consideration given to the reader during the editing process

I could so be wrong, though. But it will break my little heart if I find that she does it entirely through focus groups and rigour.*


ETA: *teasing. About the focus groups, anyway...

Far be it from me to put words into Self's mouth (I don't know any words long enough for a start), but it may help to read this article by him (published the day before in the Guardian, the sister paper of the Observer where the interview linked in the OP appeared) about Modernism and the constriction of the English novel.

When he talks about the reader, I believe (paraphrasing from the above article) he means the Reader as somebody who wants the bad guy to be punished, the sinner to be redeemed, and the lose endings to be neatly tied.

From the article:

No, the dominant school of fiction, still more so in Britain than in the States, remains character-driven and narrative ratcheted, and whatever the changing nature of its cast and content – the underclass of Irvine Welsh, the denizens of Rushdie's fables and those of other postcolonial Booker shoo-ins – it remains unperturbed by the idea that modernity simply cannot be accommodated in such securely cosy forms. To write "jolly good reads" with a beginning, a middle and an end – including almost mandatory redemption for a previously morally vacillating protagonist – is the very stuff of books, just as it's the stuff of life on this right, tight little island.

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And that is a thought I can well get behind.

Oooh! Nice find, Theo! His approach to writing is incredibly gutsy (as we say in Australia - do other places say that, too?) It would take a lot of courage and a lot of confidence to be as gung-ho in your approach as he says he'd like to be.

In 2010 I published Walking to Hollywood, a book which exhibited all the continental pretensions we – and I say "we" advisedly – instinctively abhor: the incorporation of the writer as a character in his own work, the abandonment of plot, the banjaxing of realism etc etc. Among the British – and the Scots in particular – the critical reception was good, but the sales tanked. If I had been motivated by seeking a readership – in the way Blairite focus groups sought an electorate – then I might have tried to rein back these tendencies in my next novel; instead, I found myself unable to do this. [Will Self: modernism and me]

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Not for the faint-hearted. If you got it wrong, the lynching would be epic!

Theo81 said:

Far be it from me to put words into Self's mouth (I don't know any words long enough for a start), but it may help to read this article by him

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Even with the help of a dictionary a lot of that article went over my head, but I understood enough to both admire and roll my eyes at his approach. Will Self can afford to please himself. Anything he writes is guaranteed publication, no?

mccardey said:

Oooh! Nice find, Theo! His approach to writing is incredibly gutsy (as we say in Australia - do other places say that, too?) It would take a lot of courage and a lot of confidence to be as gung-ho in your approach as he says he'd like to be.

Not for the faint-hearted. If you got it wrong, the lynching would be epic!

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Yeah, I mean, I really, *really* searched for that one. I like to give back to the community, ya know?

Not, erm, read the Saturday Gruniad anyway or anything.

For some reason, there was a rash of novels at one time which used the author as a character - Will Self, Douglas Coupland did it in jpod (love that book), Jonathan Safran Foer in Everything Is Illuminated (although I've not read that so I don't know if it's author as character or or character with name of author), Stephen King ...

There is a novel called The Quiddity of Will Self (in the UK Kindle sale for 99p at the moment, bargain fans). I've not read it (I've not read any Self, either - he's got a ticket and is waiting for a window to become free) but it is a pleasingly demented idea. (And no, that one is nothing to do with Self as far as I'm aware and I am fairly aware on this one. The author's agent reps the kinds of books I wish I wasn't too bogged down in realism to write).

dolores haze said:

Even with the help of a dictionary a lot of that article went over my head, but I understood enough to both admire and roll my eyes at his approach. Will Self can afford to please himself. Anything he writes is guaranteed publication, no?

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The day you understand a Will Self article all the way through without outside help is the day you have truly arrived. Forget graduating, marriage, birth of your kidders - understanding a Will Self article is the really special day in your life. (Anything by him prompts a slew of boasting/complaining letters to the paper - it is a bit of an in-joke).

I don't think it would be guaranteed (but that's opinion, not fact). He's getting a lot of attention at the moment because he's been longlisted for the Booker, and I think that will certainly help, but I don't think he's an auto-top-ten-bestseller like Martin Amis or Ian McEwan are, although you'd certainly find him on the front shelf of the bookshop. I've certainly seen more of his other work (punditry, newspaper columns, TV) than his books.

He mentions in that article :

True, I do remember that when I submitted my most obviously modernist story "Scale" to my then agent he called me up and said he didn't understand it, and was disinclined to submit it to my publisher. (Vindication came in the form of upwards of 100,000 sales in the Penguin 60s edition.)

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Theo81 said:

The day you understand a Will Self article all the way through without outside help is the day you have truly arrived. Forget graduating, marriage, birth of your kidders - understanding a Will Self article is the really special day in your life. (Anything by him prompts a slew of boasting/complaining letters to the paper - it is a bit of an in-joke).

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Oh, gosh - I'm halfway to arriving then. Yay! I read and thoroughly enjoyed the first page of comments on the article. I guess that makes me in on the in-joke, too.

I must confess to an ongoing literary daydream involving Will Self. I've mistakenly been invited to a glittering literati dinner party at which I get stinking drunk and inform him the best thing he ever wrote was the liner notes to the Warren Zevon Best of album, to which Self lifts his glass and enthusiastically agrees.