Self Indulgence and the Writer...

[savageseraph]

For the last several days, more than a few discussions have popped up on my flist about writers and self-indulgence or, more specifically, writers being accused of being self-indulgent. I also stumbled across some comments on poll asking writers to respond to how they interact with readers, and the comments in this poll touched on some of the same issues. And that, my friends, started the wheels in my mind a-turning.

When I was in grad school, my mentor, our Milton scholar, left for an administrative position at another university, and our new Renaissance guy was fresh out of Harvard. There was no avoiding him if I wanted to keep taking classes in my area, but one thing that I found out about him early on was that his commentary on drafts of papers led to having to refocus the paper on one that he would most enjoy reading. This didn't have anything to do with the strength or scope of the argument, simply on his personal scholarly kinks. I finally stopped reviewing drafts with him and settled for discussion of the issues I was writing about, because I was damned well going to write my paper. He was welcome to go out and write his own.

Does that make me a self-indulgent writer?

I've received feedback on my fiction from writers groups and my own dedicated readers and taken some of what they've said to heart in revisions. My writing is stronger for it. However, there are other things that I've blatantly ignored.

Does that mean that I'm pulling a self-indulgent snit?

Am I somehow on a moral or artistic higher ground if I say that I don't give a flying flaming fuck what my readers think about my writing, because I'm not writing for them, I'm writing for me, and they will like some things I say and not like others. Like it or lump it, dearies.

Writer/reader interaction is a complex thing, and frankly, I think that writers who say that they don't give that flying flaming fuck what their readers think and that the reader doesn't enter into their minds at all when they are writing are liars. However, on the other end of the spectrum, writers who make pandering to their readers their most important concern are simply word-whores.

When I teach, I spend time, a lot of time, on discussing what it means to write for an academic audience, and when my classes analyze other writers' texts, I ask them to consider audience in our discussion. I make them respond to each other's writing so that they can see how what they say and how they say it impacts their readers. And let's be honest here, shall we: All writers write for an audience. All of us. Every last one. The "Oh, I'm just writing this for myself" stance is bullshit. Well, it's a smokescreen really, an illusion that is built to cushion writers from what readers might say about their work. It's a dodge, an escape route. Climbing aboard that last, lonely lifeboat as the Titanic is going down.

Even the most private stuff that I write, things in my personal hardcopy journal that no one besides me will ever see, I'm writing for an audience: me. I know that I will come back and reread what I've written, and I know how I read, how to code things so that they will mean for me later what they do when I record them. My academic writing was for my professors first and then for editors. The writing I do at work is for the people who will be using my documents to better understand and do their jobs. The audience changes, but it is always there.

When I write fiction, like Stephen King, I always have a Constant Reader in mind. To be honest, this person has no gender or substance (though I'll use the generic "he" to refer to him here). He has no long list of traits or preferences that I could rattle off for you, but he is always with me when I write, a presence that is lingering up above the story but not a part of it. Watching. The one quality that he has is that he does not tolerate lies, the lies that would come from pandering to him, from letting lose the reins of character or plot simply to gain his approval, from failing to be as caught up in my own story when I'm writing it as I expect him to be when he reads it.

While he doesn't dictate what to write--the characters do quite enough of that on their own,--I have a sense of how he will feel about what I've written. I know if it will make him uneasy, angry, sad, giddy, aroused.

And I don't think there's a storyteller worth her salt out there who doesn't want her readers to respond to her work. Who doesn't want to see their words and works resonating in her readers? It's not accidental that so many writers have taken to blogging. It brings us closer to our Constant Readers, as we talk about projects and craft, our lives and the things and people we love. Writers mainline words (which is the medium of exchange on the Web), and while the resulting trip might be wildly exhilarating or nightmarish, we're hooked on it.

Am I a self-indulgent writer? Of course. Writing is a ladder of indulgences. I indulge my characters (in good ways and in bad) so that they will, in turn, indulge me by responding to my attention. From that response, stories are born, stories that I write because the act of creating them brings me pleasure. A pleasure that my readers indulge whenever and however they respond to what I've written.

Comments

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

There are some readers who are closer to my ideal Constant Reader than others. I have one friend who's an excellent beta -- not only does she gushingly appreciate the bits I'm especially proud of :) but more importantly she tells me when things don't work -- even if they are the Best Bits.

Having said that, she's never tried to change the direction of a story: she's been more like me-with-objectivity, helping me chisel away the unnecessary stuff.

And the really nice thing about this is that I'm not just being self-indulgent: I'm indulging her too ... :)

[savageseraph.livejournal.com]

I agree completely. And that person who will tell you the truth about what doesn't work for them is golden.

[nesmith.livejournal.com]

However, there are other things that I've blatantly ignored.

Does that mean that I'm pulling a self-indulgent snit?

The thing with that is if you listen to every single bit of feedback on a piece of writing, you'll drive yourself nuts. I remember workshopping a piece and having two different readers tell me completely different things about the same scene. Some readers either won't get it, or will read something into it that isn't there, or will just miss the point completely. If I want useful feedback on a Whofic, I won't ask someone who hates the Who. If I'm writing sci-fi, I won't ask someone who has never read sci-fi.

This is something I've told my students, which is also why I took Sally Joranko's example and did feedback musical chairs--that way they got three pieces of feedback instead of one, and would be better able to weed out the person who just didn't get it.

*end confused rambling*

[savageseraph.livejournal.com]

I have my students get multiple pieces of feedback from different readers too, because not all readers are created equal. Also, my students have a habit of thinking that the best writers in the class are also the best readers, and while that is often the case, it ain't always so.

[nesmith.livejournal.com]

No kidding. I had some good writers in my class this spring, and yet they'd make the most out-of-left-field comments during class discussions. O.o

[nancyblue.livejournal.com]

Self indulgent? Not at all. I think you need to know when a critique is actually going to help your piece and make it tight, or if the critique was, as you mentioned about your former prof (and I've had that happen too), because your reader just wanted something else. I have found for me that good critiques on my work just ring true. I have that "Aha, that's what was wrong but I couldn't put my finger on it" response. That's the stuff for which I'm most grateful.

[savageseraph.livejournal.com]

The "Aha!" response applies to me too. And even if it doesn't resonate right away, once a reader says, "Here's why I think X," I can feel it. It's a muddy area though, because it does lead to the bad sort of self-indulgence: It's mine! And you can't tell me anything about it because I know it best and love it best!

[gwynfyd.livejournal.com]

I'm a self-indulgent writer, too. But not self-indulgent in a lazy way. I'm my own best critic, because I have extremely high standards for my own stories. Of course I want readers to enjoy my stories. But that's not what I think about when I start writing. I don't ask myself what my readers will want. I ask myself if this is an idea that engages me, because otherwise I can't do a good job writing it. I ask myself if the story is up to my standards, because it has my name on it, and I'll have to live with having written it. I don't care if so-and-so thinks I should have written such-and-such, because it's not their story. My name is there beside the title. The critic might be right or might be wrong, but in the end, they have nothing to do with the story. It's mine.

[savageseraph.livejournal.com]

In thinking about it more, I'd say that I consider my readers most when I'm revising. At least that's when I'm most consciously aware of them. As you've said, they don't dictate what will happen in the story, but since I know how I want them to respond, I will use that when I go over sections to heighten that effect/mood/etc.

[gwynfyd.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's it. Different writers consider their readers' tastes at different times and to different extents. Otherwise, all writing would be the same -- tailored to what readers say they want. It would all be like, for instance, Harlequin Romances, or something like that.

I write what pleases me, and any readers can make of it what they will. I'm not trying to tailor my stories to them, and also not trying to manipulate readers into seeing things the way I see them. I'm a rather cool writer, I think. I tend to keep my distance from readers, when I'm writing a story. I'm not trying to get inside their heads. Other writers want to do this -- to interact with people through their stories. They're more passionately involved with the psyches of their readers perhaps. It gives their stories a different resonance.

quite random, not meaning to offend

[burningskyfire.livejournal.com]

*ponders* This is interesting.
[random contribution]
I was in a conversation with a photographer a few weeks ago. For some background, he's recently made what can be considered quite violent, graphic montages depicting rape and other sexual activities in adolescents... he was asked about how this can be considered disturbing and what he was thinking/trying to achieve when he created the images. He said that when he creates, he finds it arbitrary to attempt to anticipate the response of his audience... almost, uhm, I think he was implying some kind of arrogance. He also said that people can respond to these montages of rape and sexual activity in a number of different ways: people can be disturbed or unmoved, offended or intrigued, and so forth. He finds it arbitrary also to be attempting to achieve any particular thing other than expression through art.
That struck me as, well my response was along the lines of, 'but it's rape', there are responses that are fairly obvious to anticipate and that isn't in any way arrogant... though that boils down to societal ideas and expectations of what is and isn't appropriate. What's offensive and why; the kind of values people uphold. Well, depending on how subjective one's view of morality is. Perhaps some things are inherently wrong (I don't know; I'm inclined to posit that there are), though, I digress.
I wonder the extent to which this can be paralleled with writing - that ambivalence towards anticipating an audience, or, even writing off anticipation as something resembling arrogance.
The other thing Bill Henson (this photographer) said was that a work of art becomes separate from the artist upon completion: the work itself is given its own life. A response to the art is more to do with the relationship between the viewer and the art; the artist is peripheral to that relationship. Again, I think there are potentially parallels to be drawn between art and writing.
The thing is, I don't know if Henson is lying to himself or anyone else when he speaks of his art in these terms. I think this is his truth.
It's not that I'm attempting to disagree with you, it's just that as a student of writing, art and life I've been presented with differing viewpoints and I'm pondering aloud. :)
[/random contribution]

Re: quite random, not meaning to offend

[savageseraph.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I do think that once an artist (writer, painter, musician, etc.) puts her work out there for an audience, she does loose control over it. A friend of mine is a professional writer, and when I finished one of her stories, I told her that I wasn't sure if the ending was happy or sad. Push the interpretation a little one way or another and it could have been either. She told me that neither interpretation is what she intended, then explained what she was going for. Then she said, "Not that it matters much. I'm just the writer. I don't get to tell people what it should mean to them."

However, the photo spread of underage sexuality/sexual violence also invites the question of whether or not a writer should be held accountable morally for what she produces. I didn't see the display, but my first response to the underage part is that it seems illegal (child pornography laws being what they are) and rightly so. That makes it hard for me to talk about that specific example. However, even if we were talking about adult sexuality in the rape spread, is the artist responsible for the content of his work? If I write grisly scenes of depraved murder or rape scenes in my horror novel, should I be taken to task for that? Do I owe it to my readers to consider that it likely would offend or sicken them?

That touches on a different issue for me. An artist's imagination should not be fettered in any way. I would defend the photographer's right to produce works that are cruel or brutal, works that disturb me and that I wouldn't want to see myself.

Still, the whole "Art is about expression!" argument doesn't fly with me. Art has structure and meaning, even if the artist can't see it himself, but artists worth their salt can. Do you think that Dali just tossed random images on the canvas because that was how he was feeling one day? I don't. Artists deal with symbols all the time, and they are aware that they do. At least all the ones I know are aware that they do.

So yeah, I think that your photographer was being a little uppity when he said what he did. That sort of talk really shuts down discussing art with the artist rather neatly. It lets him not have to talk about his work because he can't really explain his expression. He just...expresses it! ^_~

[gotham-syren.livejournal.com]

In my usual asynchronous fashion, I am just now reading this post, having made a mental note to go back to it when you originally posted. I was vaguely aware of the debate going on last month about writers and the relationship with their audience. It's an interesting topic, of course, and I am really curious how the same questions fare when applied to blogs or personal journals... Do you happen to know if that issue came up in any of the threads? From the responses here looks like the conversation centered on writer as fiction writer, rather than journal writer, although you mentioned that you feel there is always the presence of the Constant Reader, even for the most private sorts of writing (which I agree with). Might try to pick up the topic in a post in my LJ, if the spirit moves me.