YOUR READERS
Readers of course vary in susceptibility to the illusion of
fiction--vary in concentration, reading method, background of culture
and of experience in life, familiarity with the ways and habits of
fiction, critical attitude, imagination, particularly strength and
quality of imaginative imagery, and in everything else that makes up
mentality and individuality. Must the writer satisfy and hold all
these from one extreme to the other? Yes, if he is to do perfect
fiction. Possibly perfect fiction exists, but fortunately readers
can be more or less divided into classes or types, each class capable
of being very roughly characterized as a unit. The more classes
reached and satisfied by a story, the better the story.
_Be Clear as to Your Audience_.--The fiction author can follow one of
three courses:
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(1) He can "just write," disregarding the question of who his readers
may be and trusting that his style and methods may happen to be such
as will win him an audience. This is an admirable method provided it
chances to succeed. If it doesn't, he will have to abandon it for
one of the others.
(2) Choose a particular class for his audience and aim directly at
them. Naturally he will have to study his audience very carefully
and know them rather thoroughly if he is to succeed. Limiting his
audience, he limits the scope and therefore the degree of his
success; a story satisfying the highest class can not be so good as
if it satisfied both the highest and the next highest class or
several other classes. It is entirely possible to do both, as
Shakespeare and others have proved.
(3) Aim to reach as many classes as possible. Here, too, he must
study and know his audience. Obviously it is a higher aim than the
second, demanding more of the author. Having a larger audience to
draw on, it is likely to attain greater success as measured by number
of readers, though it is always a nice problem to decide in a given
case {48} whether more readers can be secured by playing for your
share of the majority, against all competitors, or by concentrating
on a minority, against fewer competitors.
Considering carefully these three courses, it is necessary first to
know your audience and keep them very definitely in mind, unless you
are willing to write wholly from the subjective point of view and go
it blind as to your audience, taking the extremely long chance that
your substance and style may happen to satisfy a sufficient number of
readers. It generally doesn't. Second, it is advisable to reach as
many classes of readers as possible. Your task, then, is to know and
to consider constantly as many classes of readers as you can. And
knowing them means much more than having a general knowledge of their
tastes.
_Fundamental Reactions Universal_.--Some will straightway object,
"But I prefer to write for only the highest class of readers." It is
their right to do so, and their choice may be a wise one. But I
maintain two points. First, it is not the highest aim. Second, the
writer who prefers this aim is probably most likely of all to fail to
know his audience. The {49} mistake to which he is peculiarly liable
is that of forgetting that the highest class is not a thing apart but
merely all the other classes plus something more. His tendency is to
believe that they have passed on beyond all the tastes and reactions
of the other classes far more than they really have. Most of all, he
is likely to credit them with having risen above the cruder, more
fundamental tastes and reactions of the other classes. They haven't.
They have merely piled upon the fundamental reactions a larger
collection of refined--and often artificial--reactions than have the
others. The fundamental reactions may become somewhat blurred and
aborted, are certainly less consciously active and generally less
active in fact, but they are still there and still operative and
sometimes in full strength. That is as true as any general rule that
can be laid down concerning the human mind and too much emphasis can
not be placed on it.
_The Target_.--To reach any audience perfectly you must reach them at
all points, satisfying all demands, overcoming all their inherent
obstacles, allowing for the varying equipment ranging from the lowest
to the {50} highest among them--equipment of background, imagination,
concentration, general intelligence and so on. And on each point you
must reach those most gifted in it, most difficult to satisfy in that
respect. It is not enough to satisfy those with little cultural
background; your story must stand the test of those who have the
most. It must reach not only those who set particular store by the
delicate shadings, but those who demand a definite story interest.
On any point you must aim to reach the individuals who are most
difficult to reach on that point. In no other way can you hope to
reach all.
It is not easy to do. In fact, it isn't done. But it must be the
target aimed at. It is not easy to reach both the person who reads
word for word, extracting the full flavor of each, and also the
person who skips sentences, paragraphs and pages in mad pursuit of
"what happens"; nor him who at a word or two from you reconstructs a
whole scene in his mind's eye, and him whose imagination can vision
for him only what you describe in detail. Yet, if you are to attain
the degree of success possible to you, you must aim to satisfy in
each such dilemma the extreme that for you is most difficult.
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_Study Human Beings_.--First, last and all the time, success means
study of the reader. That means study of human beings, not merely of
opinions of them or of effects secured or apparently secured on them
by other writers. The opinions may be mistaken; the effects may be
there, but you and the other writers may fail to assign to them the
proper causes. Strangely enough, the causes most often overlooked
are the elemental tastes and reactions common to all normal humans.
It is more "literary," and more convenient, to study lists of "best
sellers," to read critical reviews and academic essays, to be given
rules and standards by some one else--who got them from reviews,
essays and "best sellers." But it is human beings who are your
readers. Get your data at first hand.
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