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Writer's pictureM.P. Kidd

The Writer-Reader Agreement

Have you ever considered what a writer owes you, their reader? They certainly owe you something. After all, you spend precious time and crucial brain space to let their thoughts inhabit your head. How generous of you. How intimate.


There is an unspoken contract between you and the author whose work you choose to read - whether you realize it or not. Without it, you likely would never finish reading. And you probably won’t read anything else of theirs. (That’s your side of the contract)


Return On Investment

For your troubles, an author should try to meet three expectations:


Provoke Thought: What you read should interest you. It should turn the gears in your brain and get you thinking. Does it spur your imagination? Does it engage you?


Satisfaction: Authors pull you out of your world and into one they’ve created. Was it worth the ride? Are you glad you went? Did the resolution make sense? This is why nobody likes the ‘it was all a dream’ ending.


But the most critical expectation...

Entertainment

Writers are hired help. Don’t forget that. And don’t let them forget that, either. They are tour guides through a story you’ve paid to see. A good tour guide makes the ride unforgettable. Great tour guides take you off-road. But if you fall out of the caravan because they took too sharp of a turn, that’s not your fault. It’s theirs.


That being said, an important question you need to ask yourself is, do you belong on that ride in the first place? Are you a sci-fi fan? Do you like period pieces with densely layered prose? Hopefully, you enjoy half-baked musings. 


But as long as you’re on the right ride, the rest is up to them.


Why am I saying all this? I guess I’d like to tip the scales in favor of the reader, whoever he might be. I think writers, artists, creators - we can all get caught up chasing a unique impression or grand idea that we lose sight of who we are in service to: the customer. And the customer is always right (in terms of taste).


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