There are a lot more than two, actually, but I—surprise!—misplaced the list I had going. These are the two I remembered best.
1. Writers agonize too much over whether they should devote the first page of a story to setting the stage or jump straight into the action. That’s an issue of pace and depends mostly on the writer’s style and the demands of the story. What readers want on a first page is character. It’s loving or hating or curiosity about a character that makes readers turn the page to find out what happens next. Whether that character is navel-gazing or in the midst of stabbing somebody at the time of introduction, he or she bears the burden of being interesting and original enough to make the reader keep reading.
2. Write what you want to write, the way you want to write it. “Your” readers want your voice, your imagination, your passion for what you write, not something watered down and filtered through the neverending supply of people eager to suggest ways you can “improve” until you lose your voice, your imagination, your passion for what you write, and all the readers who liked you because of those things. Every writer should always strive to improve, but all change is not improvement. It can be a process of evolution as a writer (gradual, emphasizing strengths, minimizing weaknesses), or it can be an extreme makeover (trying to mimic the blockbuster author of the moment, jumping on every trend). The choice of path here isn’t dissimilar from how one chooses a circle of friends: Do you stand by the people who already like what you do, or do you blow them off to chase the approval of people who think you suck? Me, I’ve always been a people-who-think-I-suck-can-go-screw-themselves kind of gal with a tendency to focus on sustaining the goodwill of friendlier folks.
Why take writing lessons from readers?
(Rant about authors hanging on every word of other authors, agents, and editors and going about their business as if readers don’t matter or don’t exist redacted because, seriously, I could write a book on the subject if I had the time and the inclination to devote it to something that elevates my blood pressure until my ears pop. But in essence, there are ulterior motives behind much of the “writing advice” dispensed by many “other publishing people,” so it has to be taken with enough grains of salt to induce toxic natremia.)
Readers, on the other hand, just want good stuff to read, which intersects nicely with a writer’s goal to write stuff that is good to read.
Yeah, there’s sorting to be done in the vast inventory of reader sentiment. Not all of it is universally applicable. If I see “I’d like more historical fiction set in Colonial India…” on a reader forum, I don’t have to continue reading because that is not and never will be my area, but that’s a discussion a writer of historical fiction with an interest in Colonial India should be following because that’s her audience, her customers, her end-users, gathered together in one convenient location, discussing candidly what they want in the sort of product she’d like to sell to them. That’s a goldmine of market research.
It is not “letting readers dictate the sacred creative process” (although why it’s fine for crit partners, agents, editors, and random people on Twitter or blogs or boards who may or may not have ever written anything in their lives to leave fingerprints all over the precious creation but horrifying to think of readers doing the same is *rant rant stabbity rant*). It’s finding out, straight from the customer’s mouth, which of their needs are not being met. If a writer can find ways to meet those needs within the context of the story she wants to write, she will join the small supply for which there is a great demand. That is how good writing becomes good business.
So readers, please keep discussing the books that kept you riveted and those you’d like that aren’t being written (and doing it out in the open rather than retreating to a members-only area to avoid obnoxious authors whose only interest is bombarding you with buy-my-book spam). Some people do listen, and your voice does make a difference.
And writers… seek readers out for reasons other than self-promotion. They’re smart. They love books. They can give you a lot of insight if you just pay attention.
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