There’s this girl. You’re good friends but lately you’ve been sensing that it could be more. You want to ask her out for a drink, something the two of you have done a lot but this time, you want to hint that it’s so the two of you can see if you really click; that you might want to get serious together.
Supposing, instead of the half-glimpsed, half-guessed way we normally conduct such potentially life-changing events, you actually had to sell the evening to her. I suggest there would be broadly two approaches you could take:
1. “Hey, Jemima. Fancy going to The Dog and Duck for a few laughs and a chat about anything that interests you; and I mean you. I’d really like to get to know you better; talk about your favourite pop stars and all your cats, the ones you’ve shown me all those adorable pictures of. We could talk about favourite holiday destinations, and the best meal we’ve ever had; and what makes a perfect Christmas. I just know somehow that we’re going to find we have even more in common than we already do.”
Or:
2. “Jemima, when I’m with you I often sense that we’re close to the edge of an adventure into the unknown. I don’t know what lies that way but I feel inspired to explore it with you. I don’t want to spend my life swapping superficial tastes in music, books and food. I want to see where the path will take us, together. No set route and no destination in mind; the only safety we’ll have is that we’re in it together, the two of us against the corporate, comfortable and ultimately dead-end world. It might even lead to love; the real kind.”
Well, let’s just say one of these approaches is more of a risk than the other. The first, if only by the law of probabilities is more likely to get Jemima down the pub. And isn’t that the main aim? Surely, she’ll have at least detected a hint of what you really want and at least she’s there in person to convince later. Whereas the other route is more likely to have her running for the exit even before she’s inside the pub to exit from.
On the other hand . . .
There is nothing more magical than holding her gaze while you make it clear that this is no social equivocation: you want her, the real her, to be with the real you – and then she says, “Yes.”
Not unexpectedly, I think there is a similar dilemma for the writer when submitting to editors.
Despite what a lot editors say about wanting quality writing that’s different and true, expressed in prose that does more than just tell the story, that’s a character in its own right, they don’t often publish that sort of thing. It’s quite likely that they don’t receive much of that sort of thing of course, and hence a kind of viscous circle.
A conspiracy of the adequate quickly takes shape. It fills the Science Fiction and Fantasy anthologies and magazines, it even wins the prizes. Readers, with little else to choose from decide this must be all there is, so they read it, get used to it, become comfortable with it. The writers who write it can produce gallons of the stuff to order, to fill any hole an editor has in his publication. So the second-rate, the barely okay, becomes not only common but even celebrated too.
Why would an author try to do anything else? He’d be nuts to. It would be the same as if every time he had the chance to go to the pub for an evening with someone, he promised the best of himself would try to make it a unique event, and fail in the attempt rather than trot out a load of conversational crap that can’t really be challenged but certainly will be forgotten once the affects of the alcohol have warn off. Any takers?
There are authors who are very successful because they pander to this quick-fix need, in a field swamped by submissions. They take care never to write anything that requires the reader to think a little, to shift perception. Instead, they produce generic character cut-outs that say and do nothing the reader isn’t always ahead of. Their prose has the depth of the warning on packets of Sainsbury’s cashews that reads, ‘This product may contain nuts’ only not as funny.
A pox on them. They know who they are, and they know the compromised, condescending, utterly hollow work they produce.
Real writers don’t bring out stored reactions to the girl, eager to say and do anything that will please her. They don’t even think of the girl as a first thing. Instead they lead with their inherent, questing curiosity. Curiosity that’s interested in her, not the indistinct compromise between responsibilities the world has made her; but the her that knows there’s something more. Curiosity that takes constant risks, drawing out poetry from the angles of light across her eyes that may or may not be on the verge of soft yet total change. Not just moment to moment, but moment discovering the next moment and changing the one after it.
This is still an investigation into the integrity of the author, I think. Not integrity as in being of strong moral fibre but more to do with someone who won’t compromise on effect. Who always strives to tell a story memorably; to not stint on character, not settle for cliché, not cheat the reader by plugging the story into some plot-o-matic device that’s about as subtle as a cold caller asking you how you are today.
I deeply believe that there are a whole bunch of readers out there who want to read quality work. And there are plenty of authors who want to provide it. But it’s difficult to get them together. The noisy shallow surface skimmers have most of the space, created by brands and genres and markets and false needs; all the crap that’s easier to talk about in the pub than reality.
The key to all this probably occurs quite early in an author’s life. Either he writes because he wants to explore and share the endless mystery of life or he wants everyone to call him an author and buy his stuff, even if it’s full of nothing but borrowed ideas powered by an insecure ego.
In the business world, there’s the expression ‘balls on the table’ (or ‘plums on the cabinet’ as someone in my office once told everyone by email, presumably offering us some kind of fruity treat), which means putting yourself on the line. For an author, I think that means writing with heart and belief, disguised legitimately with characters and style and humour and great prose. It’s not a hollow soul disguised as art.