It's been two months and more since I resolved to step back from the keyboard, and a lot has happened--- and has not.
First, what hasn't happened.
As promised, I did not touch my draft of The Single Eye. In fact, I didn't open it till the 20th of this month of March.
The other thing that hasn't happened is that I didn't hear from either of my Last Two Beta Readers. That isn't to say I was never in touch with them; I just got nothing back on the novel.
Now, I could take that as a very bad sign. Yes, the one has been through severe health issues involving herself and a close family member. The other has a very full, not to say harried, schedule. But there's a nagging voice that says, "If your book was any good, they'd be compelled to read it anyway. They'd find it a solace in their affliction!"
But as much as The Single Eye involves themes that go to the heart of the human condition, as much as I hope the reader will come away having learned something about him or herself, as much as I'd love it to be the kind of book a reader will pick up again and again, it's still a novel. It's entertainment. And when your newborn has to be rushed to the ER because she can't clear her lungs, Mama ain't got time to beta read no novel.
So I'm going ahead and doing a last copy edit out of my own eye--- if that makes sense. More on that later.
Showing posts with label false assumptions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label false assumptions. Show all posts
Friday, March 24, 2017
Monday, May 11, 2015
Who Brought the Fleas?
How responsible is an author for the preconceptions and associations the reader might bring to her book?
Certainly, writers ignore shared cultural assumptions at their peril. The prologue of my first novel begins with the sound of a child knocking at her father’s study door. I dared not render that as “Knock! Knock!” because it would make readers think of the knock-knock jokes they traded in childhood. They'd guffaw and close the book.
But what of the ideas and tendencies individual readers bring in?
At a yard sale a few years ago I picked up a book called Prize Stories 1993: The O. Henry Awards. One story, “Newark Job,” by James Van Kirk, is set in the 1950s and begins with a twelve-year-old boy preparing to accompany his father, an apartment building maintenance man, on his rounds for the first time. Reading this, I immediately tightened up. I was sure his father would get him down in one of those dark dank basements and molest him sexually. Why? Because I’ve internalized certain assumptions of my culture. Authority figures can’t be trusted. People who seem good on the outside are inevitably hiding some dark secret. The sexual urge can’t be controlled and must and will be expressed in the most perverse ways. I don’t live my daily life thinking that about people, but with literature it’s what I’ve been trained to assume. I remained apprehensive as I read, continually thinking, “It’s coming. It’s coming. Now, pretty soon, he’ll do it. He’ll attack his son, there’ll be a disgusting scene, and the boy will be traumatized for life.”
It never happened. Instead, the story turned out to be one of positive enlightenment, where a kid who’d taken his pop for granted learns that Dad really is a principled unsung hero, and begins to aspire to the everyday greatness that will be required of him as the son of such a man.
These days when I think of “Newark Job,” I remember the hope and pride the author meant me to feel. But I can revive all too easily the gut fear of my initial assumptions. Who is responsible for them? In this case, surely not the author. To repeat the protest of the landlady of a Greater London bed and breakfast, “Oney fleas in ere is wot you brot with you!”*
But even though the Van Kirk story was written fairly recently, in 1992, maybe it’s different now. Should we contemporary authors assume that in an ambiguous situation our readers will inevitably assume the worst? If the worst is not what we mean, should we go above and beyond to prevent their thinking it? Or should we as good readers, despite our personal psychologies, be willing to hold our initial impressions lightly as we follow the clues to the true meaning of the work?
You can probably guess where I come down on it. Assuming, of course, that the writer doesn’t open with an unintended knock-knock joke.
But what of the ideas and tendencies individual readers bring in?
At a yard sale a few years ago I picked up a book called Prize Stories 1993: The O. Henry Awards. One story, “Newark Job,” by James Van Kirk, is set in the 1950s and begins with a twelve-year-old boy preparing to accompany his father, an apartment building maintenance man, on his rounds for the first time. Reading this, I immediately tightened up. I was sure his father would get him down in one of those dark dank basements and molest him sexually. Why? Because I’ve internalized certain assumptions of my culture. Authority figures can’t be trusted. People who seem good on the outside are inevitably hiding some dark secret. The sexual urge can’t be controlled and must and will be expressed in the most perverse ways. I don’t live my daily life thinking that about people, but with literature it’s what I’ve been trained to assume. I remained apprehensive as I read, continually thinking, “It’s coming. It’s coming. Now, pretty soon, he’ll do it. He’ll attack his son, there’ll be a disgusting scene, and the boy will be traumatized for life.”
It never happened. Instead, the story turned out to be one of positive enlightenment, where a kid who’d taken his pop for granted learns that Dad really is a principled unsung hero, and begins to aspire to the everyday greatness that will be required of him as the son of such a man.
These days when I think of “Newark Job,” I remember the hope and pride the author meant me to feel. But I can revive all too easily the gut fear of my initial assumptions. Who is responsible for them? In this case, surely not the author. To repeat the protest of the landlady of a Greater London bed and breakfast, “Oney fleas in ere is wot you brot with you!”*
But even though the Van Kirk story was written fairly recently, in 1992, maybe it’s different now. Should we contemporary authors assume that in an ambiguous situation our readers will inevitably assume the worst? If the worst is not what we mean, should we go above and beyond to prevent their thinking it? Or should we as good readers, despite our personal psychologies, be willing to hold our initial impressions lightly as we follow the clues to the true meaning of the work?
You can probably guess where I come down on it. Assuming, of course, that the writer doesn’t open with an unintended knock-knock joke.
_______________
*From Yacky Dar Moy Bewty: A Phrasebook for the Regions of Britain by Sam Llewellyn
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