Writers vs Readers – Part N

I know I’ve covered this before, but I’m too lazy too check.

Hey, I’m getting old. I get to indulge in repetitive blather. And one of the soap boxes I like to climb is that old favorite, “Who am I writing for?” In my Google Reader this morning, I came across New Launch: Peer Critique Studio. Now, I’m certainly not going to say that peer critique is useless or irrelevant. It isn’t. In fact, it may be necessary. And I have no opinion on this particular critique group, since I’m not a member, and I don’t subscribe to the common belief that “Everyone has a right to their own opinion.” Sorry, you don’t. You only have a right to an opinion if a) the topic is a matter of opinion, not fact, and b) you have taken the time to educate yourself on the topic. I have no “right to an opinion” regarding the relative weight of water vs steel in Earth’s gravitational field, I have no “right to an opinion” of whether your Great-Auntie Grace is crazy or not, because I don’t know her, and I have no “right to an opinion” regarding any group of which I know nothing.

I do, however, have a right to an opinion regarding whom I’d rather please, and, in fact, whom I must please as a writer: readers or other writers. I have no problem with pleasing both, of course, but when I set myself the task of writing a complete novella from exactly one (count it, one!) viewpoint, with absolutely no violations allowed, I’d rather hear from the reader with no pretensions to being a writer, who said “I like the way you can see the duality between what the other characters really want and what the main character thinks they want, even though you never see their thoughts,” than from the writer who said “You will stagnate as an author until you learn to handle multiple viewpoints.” I’d rather hear from the reader who told me exactly how the story had made her feel than the writer who says “Show, don’t tell.” (Oh, don’t get me started! If you want to claim to be a writer, learn a better way to say “Tell about these things, not about those things,” than “Show, don’t tell.” It’s writing. It’s words. Words can only tell, they cannot show. We don’t call it storyshowing.)

If I were a cabinetmaker, and I made new kitchen cabinets for your house, if you were just a normal person who cooks and cleans and stores things, you’d have one take on those cabinets, and if you were a cabinetmaker, you’d have another. I’m not going to say that either way of looking at cabinets or stories is wrong, or that either way is more significant or meaningful, but unless you plan to only sell your cabinets to the other cabinetmakers of the world, you’d better learn to please the people who cook and clean and store things.