“Found in Translation” (Part 4)

There is a fascinating opinion piece in this Sunday’s NY Times from novelist Michael Cunningham, author of “The Hours” and a new book “By Nightfall.” Cunningham’s article is so thought-provoking that I decided to break it up into five parts so we could discuss it this week. Here is part four [bold emphasis added]:

This brings us to the question of the relationship between writers and their readers, where another act of translation occurs.

I teach writing, and one of the first questions I ask my students every semester is, who are you writing for? The answer, 9 times out of 10, is that they write for themselves. I tell them that I understand — that I go home every night, make an elaborate cake and eat it all by myself. By which I mean that cakes, and books, are meant to be presented to others. And further, that books (unlike cakes) are deep, elaborate interactions between writers and readers, albeit separated by time and space.

I remind them, as well, that no one wants to read their stories. There are a lot of other stories out there, and by now, in the 21st century, there’s been such an accumulation of literature that few of us will live long enough to read all the great stories and novels, never mind the pretty good ones. Not to mention the fact that we, as readers, are busy.

We have large and difficult lives. We have, variously, jobs to do, spouses and children to attend to, errands to run, friends to see; we need to keep up with current events; we have gophers in our gardens; we are taking extension courses in French or wine tasting or art appreciation; we are looking for evidence that our lovers are cheating on us; we are wondering why in the world we agreed to have 40 people over on Saturday night; we are worried about money and global warming; we are TiVo-ing five or six of our favorite TV shows.

What the writer is saying, essentially, is this: Make room in all that for this. Stop what you’re doing and read this. It had better be apparent, from the opening line, that we’re offering readers something worth their while.

I should admit that when I was as young as my students are now, I too thought of myself as writing either for myself, for some ghostly ideal reader, or, at my most grandiose moments, for future generations. My work suffered as a result.

It wasn’t until some years ago, when I was working in a restaurant bar in Laguna Beach, Calif., that I discovered a better method. One of the hostesses was a woman named Helen, who was in her mid-40s at the time and so seemed, to me, to be just slightly younger than the Ancient Mariner. Helen was a lovely, generous woman who had four children and who had been left, abruptly and without warning, by her husband. She had to work. And work and work. She worked in a bakery in the early mornings, typed manuscripts for writers in the afternoons, and seated diners at the restaurant nights.

Helen was an avid reader, and her great joy, at the end of her long, hard days, was to get into bed and read for an hour before she caught the short interlude of sleep that was granted her. She read widely and voraciously. She was, when we met, reading a trashy murder mystery, and I, as only the young and pretentious might do, suggested that she try Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” since she liked detective stories. She read it in less than a week. When she had finished it she told me, “That was wonderful.”

“Thought you’d like it,” I answered.

She added, “Dostoyevsky is much better than Ken Follett.”

“Yep.”

Then she paused. “But he’s not as good as Scott Turow.”

Although I didn’t necessarily agree with her about Dostoyevsky versus Turow, I did like, very much, that Helen had no school-inspired sense of what she was supposed to enjoy more, and what less. She simply needed what any good reader needs: absorption, emotion, momentum and the sense of being transported from the world in which she lived and transplanted into another one.

I began to think of myself as trying to write a book that would matter to Helen. And, I have to tell you, it changed my writing. I’d seen, rather suddenly, that writing is not only an exercise in self-expression, it is also, more important, a gift we as writers are trying to give to readers. Writing a book for Helen, or for someone like Helen, is a manageable goal.

It also helped me to realize that the reader represents the final step in a book’s life of translation.

These 14 paragraphs may be the most important thing you read about writing this year — or perhaps any year. It drives home a fundamental point that needs to be hammered home again and again: Writers write for readers. We may think we work in relative solitude, but in fact there is the specter of the reader hovering over our words. They desperately want to be entertained.

Is what you are writing entertaining? Per Cunningham, is it absorbing, will it make a reader feel something, does the story create a narrative that pulls the reader along, will it transport the reader from their world into your world?

In the case of a screenwriter working on a spec script, we have a very specific target audience: a professional script reader. Their job is to read, analyze, and provide coverage on scripts. Lots and lots of scripts. Lots and lots of shitty scripts. After a years of that soul-sucking experience, they more than anyone have the right to be cynical. And yet, acquainted with as many script readers as I am, I know for a fact that every time they crack open a manuscript, despite their considerable fears that they won’t like it, they always have a flickering hope that they will be swept away by the story.

It’s that reader I keep in mind while I write. That’s why Cunningham’s words — What the writer is saying, essentially, is this: Make room in all that for this. Stop what you’re doing and read this. It had better be apparent, from the opening line, that we’re offering readers something worth their while — is such a powerful reminder of what’s at stake with our words, even our story’s opening line.

That challenge may seem daunting, even overwhelming, which is why I found this comment to be a wonderful, uplifting takeaway:

Writing is not only an exercise in self-expression, it is also, more important, a gift we as writers are trying to give to readers.

To have the instinct and talent to write, to have the opportunity to craft a story, to have a reader be moved by our story, all of that is a gift. With everything we have going against us as writers, doesn’t it behoove us to approach out task with an awareness of this spiritual dimension?

When you write, do you consciously write for a reader? Do you think of their powerful desire to be entertained? Have you ever considered your writing to be a gift? Your stories to be gifts to readers?