Teaching Empathy: A Novel Approach

Scientists are just beginning to study the effects of fiction on the minds of those who read it, and one interesting result hit the news last week: reading fiction seems to increase empathy.

Almost all of us have empathy: the only people who completely lack the ability are people with mental pathologies like narcissism and sociopathy. But even mentally-healthy people can vary in their levels of empathy, and now it seems there's one way to increase it: read more fiction.

Not any old fiction will do the trick, though: The study referenced in Scientific American tested literary fiction against "popular" fiction and nonfiction. Literary fiction was the clear winner: subjects who read books deemed "literary" did significantly better in tests measuring "their ability to infer and understand other people’s thoughts and emotions" than subjects who read popular fiction or nonfiction.

The example SciAm gave of a literary book is Louise Erdrich's The Round House, which won the National Book Award last year. For popular fiction, test subjects read excerpts from authors like Danielle Steel. I think we can all agree that Erdrich and Steel are pretty clear examples of their type: there's no question the one is literary and the other is popular. Books like Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game or Alice LePlante's Turn of Mind are blurrier: one is science fiction, the other is a mystery, and genre is usually considered popular fiction. But both of those books fit the "literary fiction" definition in other ways: they are intensely interested in character; in fact, each plot actively flows from character. They also bother with language, the rhythm and flow of words on a page. They are both quite dark and end (spoiler alert!) rather unhappily; popular fiction tends to favor tidy, happy endings. 

So what I'm saying here is: don't get too hung up on categorization. If the book has nuanced characters whose minds you really get into, that's what counts.

Which brings us back to the point—why are these three styles of writing (literary, popular, and nonfiction) so different in their effect on empathy? From the SciAm article: "Popular fiction tends to portray situations that are otherworldly and follow a formula to take readers on a roller-coaster ride of emotions and exciting experiences. Although the settings and situations are grand, the characters are internally consistent and predictable, which tends to affirm the reader’s expectations of others. It stands to reason that popular fiction does not expand the capacity to empathize."

Walk a mile in her shoes: read a book

In contrast, "Literary fiction focuses less on the plot, and more on the mental life of the characters, who are often 'incomplete;'" say the study's authors. "Hence the need for the reader to make an effort to infer what their intentions, emotions, thoughts, motivations are."

The study is of particular interest to people who work with disadvantaged youth, who don't have the access to normal socialization that their more privileged counterparts enjoy. It's also of interest to people who work with prisoners and empathy-challenged people like those sociopaths mentioned above. If empathy can be improved, it makes sense to spend effort improving it. For the rest of us, it can also help, though: empathy can dismantle the in-group vs. out-group barriers that keep so many of us apart: whoever you consider "the other," whether that's Muslims, blacks, or gays, you are less likely to maintain fear and discomfort if you learn to empathize with that group. Read The Kite Runner and your perspective on Afghanistan and its people will be forever changed. Read Native Son and briefly take on the perspective of a black man in early 20th-century America. Read Madeline Miller's gorgeous Song of Achilles to imagine what it's like to be a male warrior falling on love with another man ... in ancient Greece. Other books can cross other divides: religion, nationality, gender, even time.

This is not to say there's anything wrong with reading or writing popular fiction. "There are likely benefits of reading popular fiction—certainly entertainment," says study author David Comer Kidd. "We just did not measure them." Rather than dismissing popular fiction, readers and writers of literary fiction can focus on what's right with their preferred style. In an interview with NPR, author Jesmyn Ward said she found the study's results inspirational. "If that's true, then that's exactly what I want to happen when I write," she said. "Part of the reason that I write about what I write about is that the people I grew up with, poor people and black people, are underrepresented in fiction. So it's amazing to me that a study like this shows that people are seeing these characters and can empathize with them and sympathize with them. It makes me feel like what I'm trying to do is working."

You can never go wrong with bringing more empathy into the world.

~Stephanie

Writing Romance: An Interview (And a Giveaway!)

Like many English majors, I was brainwashed in college against reading any genre fiction. Growing up as a reader has involved letting go of that arbitrary prejudice and learning to enjoy a variety of genres: in the last year alone I've read a fantasy, a mystery, several YAs, and a thriller. Excellent writing exists across genres, and the tagline “literary” is no guarantee of artistic merit, much less reading enjoyment. This week, I’m delighted to introduce our readers to Gabi Stevens, author of the Time of Transition series, classified as “paranormal romance” and described by one Amazon reviewer as “a mix between contemporary romance and Harry Potter.” (Ms. Stevens has also kindly offered a book giveaway: see end for details.)

Q: When you tell people you write romance novels, what kind of reaction do you get?

A: Here are some of the actual quotes I’ve received and the answers I wish I could say in parentheses:
“When are you going to write a real book?” (As opposed to the fake one you’re holding right now?)
“When are you going to write something serious?” (You mean the ones that leave you feeling like you need Prozac?)
“How can you write such trash?” (I’m sorry you have such an opinion on novels celebrating love. How sad you’ve never experienced it.)

Here are some of the more positive ones:
“Oh, I love trashy novels.” (Then you won’t like mine because it isn’t trash.)
“Did your husband pose for the cover?” (Sure, because a middle-aged engineer is just who readers want to see.)
“Is it based on real life?” (Yes, just like Agatha Christie’s many murders and Stephen King’s encounters with preternatural beings and events. What part of fiction don’t you understand?)

I have to say that those reactions come from non-romance readers. People who read and enjoy romance are excited to meet an author. I’ve never had anything but a truly wonderful experience with readers. And it’s a large community. Romance comprises the largest segment of the fiction market. With sales exceeding 1.3 billion dollars in 2010, romance beats the next largest segment (religious/inspirational) by nearly 600 hundred million dollars.

The word is getting out however. There are now academic conferences on the romance novel, books on romance (Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan), articles and web sites.These examples are only a small sampling of information on Romance. Romance Writers of America (RWA) is a national organization with over 10,000 members with local chapters across the US and online.

Q: For a genre that has such strong and enthusiastic support, romance seems awfully misunderstood. What would you say is the most common misperception about this genre?

A: I’d like to address three misperceptions actually. The first is that writing romance is easy. Nathaniel Hawthorne said, “Easy reading is damn hard writing.” Authors who have never attempted it seem to think that they can pop out a romance novel in a weekend. Sorry, folks. We study our craft. We worry about characterization, plot, theme (I’m giving a talk on theme this summer at the RWA national conference in Anaheim in July), story arc, turning points, wordsmithing, conflict, etc. What one discovers if one studies the market, editors, and agents is that romance authors, especially the members of RWA are better prepared than other authors. They understand the business and the craft side of writing. Be prepared to learn a lot before you write romance.

The second is that the books are formula. And here it is: a romance is the story of two individuals in a central love story with a satisfying ending. Okay, genre romance tends to have the HEA—happily ever after, and that’s what people object to: that all the books are the same. What non-romance readers don’t realize is that the novels aren’t about whether the two characters get together; they’re about how the two characters get together. Within the genre are such varied subgenres as historical, which has its own subgenres such as regency, British, Scottish, western, medieval, etc; contemporary; romantic suspense; paranormal, including vampires, werewolves, ghosts, time travel, sci fi, and my own, fantasy; inspirational; category; and single title. There are light romances and dark ones, humorous and serious, short and long. One last thing about formula: I defy you to name a genre that isn’t formulaic. When was the last time you read a mystery where the detective ends the book by saying, “Oh well, I couldn’t solve it. Better luck next time”? A better word for formula is reader expectation. All genres, including literary fiction, have reader expectations, and if those expectations aren’t fulfilled, the book fails.

The third misperception is that romance novels are all about the sex. Porn for women. In my last book, As You Wish, the story is told in 306 pages. Of those, ten pages describe sex. That’s approximately three percent of the novel. And the rest is describing the characters’ clothing. Just kidding. There is an actual story. (I know. You’re shocked.) Depending on what type of book you pick up, the level of sensuality and the amount of sex will vary from having events occur behind closed doors to explicit erotic romances. And besides, what’s wrong with sex?

Q: As a big fan of Diana Gabaldon’s (quite sexy and wildly popular) Outlander series,  I wholeheartedly agree! Next question: In researching sci-fi and fantasy, I discovered a number of rules, such as “each magical ability must come at a cost.” Each genre has such properties and peculiarities: what can you tell us about the romance genre?

A: If you are writing for the romance market, the book must have a couple and a happy ending. A book can be romantic but not be a romance (think Nicholas Sparks or Danielle Steele), or have a happy ending and not be a romance. Otherwise the parameters are wide open. I would contend that the best romance novels hold their own against the best novels in any genre. Yes, there are bad ones, but, really, every genre has bad ones. Great romance novels are sublime, just as any great novels are. Books one considers great comes down to taste (after grammar, sentence structure, etc.). We all have different tastes, which is as is should be. I would hate to have only one type of book to read. If you want to learn more about the genre, do check out rwanational.org. And if you’re planning on writing a romance novel, love them. It’ll show up in your writing if you don’t.

Q: When one of my manuscripts developed a strong romantic subplot, I went to the library and checked out a few books on writing romance. I think this is one thing that sets romance apart from the other genres: non-romance writers can turn to this genre for ideas on their own plots, because so many novels have a romantic element. This can't really be said for westerns, sci-fi, fantasy, or horror.

A: The point you bring up is why I find the critics’ and (snobby) readers’ reaction to romance so baffling. Love is such a central and deeply ingrained human emotion. So many, many stories focus on love of all kinds. So many great books have strong romantic subplots—look at Stephen King’s latest book, 11/22/63. Suzanne Brockmann gave a keynote speech that I was privileged to hear. She left us in tears. In the speech she said, when the towers were falling on 9/11, people didn’t call their banks, or their businesses. They called their loved ones to say that they love them. JK Rowling’s great villain (Voldemort for those of you living under rocks) is defeated because he cannot understand love.

Q: The process of deciding which genre to write in is rather mysterious to me. I am still genre-hopping, myself, trying to find the best fit. I've toyed with YA, fantasy, historical fiction, and that vague category known as "women's fiction." Paranormal romance is such a specific subcategory: what led you there? Is it because that's what you enjoy reading, or was it something else? 

A: I loved reading since I was tiny, and romances specifically since I was 16 (I can still distinctly recall the first romance I read. My mother gave it to me—Johanna Lindsey’s Captive Bride. The second one I read was Kathleen Woddiwiss’s The Flame and the Flower. Woddiwiss’s book is widely acknowledged as the birth of the modern romance novel and changed women’s fiction forever). I also have a degree—two actually—in literature. I’ve always preferred genre fiction or 19th century fiction, and, well, one can’t write 19th century fiction in the 21st century, can one? Paranormal romance is a logical choice for me because I’ve studied the Grimm fairytales extensively, and many of the books I loved as a kid were paranormal—The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, The Borrowers, The Phantom Tollbooth, the E. Nesbit and Edward Eager books, etc. (Just stop me now.) I’ve always loved mysteries as well, and went through a long period of reading horror, and still love science fiction. But romance remains my favorite and I have written historical romance as well under a different name.

The greatest thing about being unpublished is that you can genre-hop. You have the freedom to write whatever you wish. Once you sell a book, the publisher will want to see similar books from you. That doesn’t mean that you can’t someday write in other genres—many authors do—but bottom line is that writing is a business once you’re published (and should be before as well) and some of that freedom disappears.

Q: One thing my writer friends sometimes say is that they won't, or can't, consider themselves Real Writers™ until they get published. When did you first self-identify as a writer?

A: I finished my first manuscript after five years of picking it up and putting it down. It was a hobby, nothing more. I was still so far from being published, but having finished a manuscript was such a thrill, I immediately started on a second. Only after finishing my third did I really consider that writing was something I could see myself doing as a career. At that point I started a fourth manuscript, actively sought an agent, and joined writers’ groups.

While getting published is certainly one of a series of steps with different goals, I believe you must identify yourself as a writer before that event. Why? Because if you aren’t taking yourself seriously, taking your craft seriously, making goals for yourself, then you won’t get to the step of publication. Even before I was published, my kids knew that when I was writing, I was working. My husband respected my need to spend money I hadn’t earned from writing on writing. Because I was a writer. After publication, you’re just a published writer.

Q: What was the process of getting your first novel published? For example, was it the first novel you'd actually written, or did you have abandoned projects? How many queries did you send out before you got a bite, and how did you decide which agents to contact?

A: The first novel I sold was in fact my first manuscript, but it’s not that simple. I went back to my first manuscript and rewrote it after my fourth manuscript. And revised it more times than you can count. So really, it no longer resembled my first manuscript by the time I sold. I definitely have unsold manuscripts (three complete, four partials). They aren’t abandoned—due to changes in editors, the market, different stages in my career, they remain unsold or unfinished, but definitely not abandoned.

Once you’ve decided what type of novels you write, the agent search can begin. There are all sorts of databases to explore—on line and off. Make sure to do research. You don’t want to send a children’s book to someone who doesn’t represent that genre or fiction to a non-fiction agent. Look at the acknowledgments and dedications of books you love. Very often the authors will mention their agents. And join a writers’ group. Talk to other writers and find out their agent stories.

As for the queries themselves. . .I always laugh when an article appears about a best selling book and the writer drags out the number of times the author was rejected. Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, was rejected sixty times and people are shocked by that number. I’ll tell you right here, that number is common and higher numbers are just as common. The opportunities for rejection abound. In one of my outings in this business, I was rejected closer to eighty times. What I give Ms. Stockett credit for is perseverance. My first agent gave me the following words of wisdom: There are three elements in a successful writing career—luck, talent, and perseverance. Of the three you need only two, but one of them must be perseverance.

Q: Regarding famous rejections, like Kathyrn Stockett’s and JK Rowling’s: I, too, have marveled that so many agents could turn down such obviously well-written manuscripts. Is there really such a glut of fabulous fiction out there that agents can afford to be so choosy? Then someone pointed out that these manuscripts may not have been nearly so polished when the authors first began pitching them. Perhaps the rejections came with feedback that helped the authors slowly revamp their stories into the current bestseller incarnations. What are your thoughts on that?

A: Frankly, editors and agents don’t have the time to give much feedback these days. Your manuscript has to be almost publishable when it comes across their desk because they don’t have the time to teach you. There are exceptions of course, but really you have to know the craft before you think of submitting. Learn, learn, learn. Write, write, write. This doesn’t mean that my agent or my editors haven’t helped me, but I do know the craft.

A large number of competent manuscripts cross editors’ and agents’ desk these days, and I can’t think of a worse adjective than “competent.” They want a manuscript that sings. And a manuscript that sings to one editor won’t to another. So much is subjective.  So editors and agents choose what they like. I’ve heard enough editors and agents say exactly those words—they choose what they like—that I absolutely believe it. I also believe most of the stuff that hits their desks is terrible and not ready for publication. Not to sound mean or superior, but a lot of writers have an unrealistic opinion of their abilities. That doesn’t mean they can’t learn; it just means they aren’t ready.

Gabi Stevens writes paranormal romances. Her next book, Wishful Thinking, is the third book in a series featuring fairy godmothers and will be released April 24, 2012. The first two books, The Wish List and As You Wish are available now. Gabi would love to share her books with new readers. One lucky winner will receive a copy of The Wish List  and another will receive As You Wish Just leave a comment here and a way to contact you. Winners will be chosen March 1.

You can find Gabi at www.GabiStevens.com, www.GabiStevens.blogspot.com, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Nutritional Reading

This week, I’ve started eating better. I’m off the pretzels, I’m eating a ton of raw vegetables, and though it’s a pain in the butt to spend extra time chopping stuff, and it’s not immediately satisfying as burying my face in a bowl of Ben & Jerrys, the payoff is ultimately worth it. This is where I introduce my food-to-literature analogy: I’m also on a healthy-reading diet.

I’m expanding here on a point raised during last week’s discussion. It was off the original topic, but I’ve been chewing on it and want to pull it out for further discussion. The question raised was, “Why emulate the literary masters when the today’s industry frowns on that type of writing?”

While it's true that certain specific trends of previous decades and centuries (omniscient third, long narrative passages) aren't trendy now, there's still plenty to learn from the masters that will help the modern writer. Personally, I find this tactic more helpful than reading how-tos. It's less confusing and more inspiring. It's also just more fun. Reading a novel is more fun than reading a manual. Not that it has to be either-or, thankfully.

Another point is that “literary master” doesn’t necessarily mean “dead guy.” Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Alice Walker, and Dorothy Allison are a few contemporary — and alive — authors generally considered "masters." ("Mistresses" sounds like a different job altogether.) They sell pretty well, too.

To some degree, it makes sense to read in the same genre you're writing: if you want to be the next Dan Brown, then study Dan Brown. Even writers of thrillers and romances, though, could benefit from immersing themselves in some Flannery O'Connor or Harper Lee. (An aside: I wish Dan Brown had studied Updike or Steinbeck: selfishly because then I could tolerate his work, and for his own sake so he’d be read beyond his own life.) O’Connor has been my darling of late: her physical descriptions — of people and places — are extraordinary. I’m so enamored that I’m not content with merely reading her: I copy out passage after passage. It’s the best way for me to microfocus on her word choice. And description is just one aspect of her talent: I could also look to her for ideas on how to build suspense, how to work in symbolism, how to pretend like you’re fairly representing a worldview when actually you are mocking it. I get more out of an hour spent with Miss Flannery than I do from any how-to book.


Not that the how-tos don’t have their place. I have shelves full of books on writing. See the photo? That’s one of my shelves; I have more. I do find inspiration and instruction from these books, but they are theory. As we’ve discussed, too much theory — especially when it conflicts — is confusing and disheartening. To make sense of this mess of ideas, I have to look to fiction, and it seems only logical to me to study the very best. Just as an aspiring painter will study the masters of that art, so an aspiring writer should. Dickens is still selling, so is Hardy, so are the Bronte sisters. When I’m writing historical fiction, it’s especially helpful for me to look to these nineteenth-century writers. I know not to emulate their head-hopping and meandering chapter-long descriptions, but Dickens had a wicked sense of humor, and some of his character descriptions are cruelly hilarious: Here are two examples from Hard Times: “Mrs. Gradgrind, a little, thin, white, pink-eyed bundle of shawls, of surpassing feebleness, mental and bodily; who was always taking physic without any effect, and who, whenever she showed a symptom of coming to life, was invariably stunned by some weighty piece of fact tumbling on her.” And, “Lady Scadgers (an immensely fat old woman, with an inordinate appetite for butcher's meat, and a mysterious leg which had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen years) contrived the marriage, at a period when Sparsit was just of age, and chiefly noticeable for a slender body, weakly supported on two long slim props, and surmounted by no head worth mentioning.”

When I’m writing modern fiction, I turn to modern writers like Joy Williams and Margaret Atwood. From my file of Helpful Snippets I’ve summoned this little bit of Atwood that caught my breath: “I feel like cotton candy: sugar and air. Squeeze me and I'd turn into a small sickly damp wad of weeping pinky-red.” From Williams: “The garage was empty. The rabbit hutch was empty save for a withered string bean. The rabbit was probably hopping around somewhere nearby, terrified. Or it might be hunched up somewhere in a narcosis of incomprehension at being hutchless.”

Contemporary masters have just as much to offer as their dead counterparts. Not every masterful writer is to everyone’s taste, as I’ve mentioned, but luckily there are plenty to choose from. If Marilynne Robinson bores you to tears (she does me), then try Barbara Kingsolver, or Jane Smiley, or Annie Proulx. Even when I’m not seeking a Brilliant Novelist to inspire me, those writers hook me right in an entertain me to the last page. They’ve all won Pulitzer Prizes, too, which is one “master of the craft” measurement.


To borrow from sister Mary Mary, just as we are what we eat, we write what we read. Reading bad fiction is likely to sustain our writing approximately as well as Snickers and Doritos will sustain our body. I’m not swearing off salty snacks forever, and I like my Janet Evanovich from time to time, but too much of that stuff will start to affect me in bad ways. I have found that reading nutritious fiction is essential to my well-being; it feeds not only my writing, but my soul.

Why stories?

Why do we write? Ask a writer and you’ll probably get an answer like this: “Because I have to.” I would answer the same way, but it’s not a very interesting response, really, so I’m going to back up and ask a different, more basic question: Why stories?
People have been producing and consuming stories since the dawn of humanity. Our children, from the time they comprehend language, demand stories. Where does this drive stem from? This question is more central to the storyteller, I believe, than the “why write?” question. If we know why humans crave stories, that helps us understand our role as storytellers. I have some ideas, and I’d like to hear yours, too.

My first thought is that stories are about disseminating a society’s values to its young people. Aesop’s fables have the moral nicely laid out for the reader at the end, in case she is too dense to get it on her own, but every story contains some moral message, even if it’s a subtle one. Pick up a book of fairy tales and notice how often you come across a decrepit beggar woman or old man requesting assistance. The first young person who meets the beggar refuses to help, and is usually rude about it to boot. The hero of the story, however, stops and is kind and generous, giving up his or her cloak and some much-needed food rations. The old man or woman turns out to be a magician in disguise, and the young person is rewarded or punished accordingly. The moral of the story? Help the old people, dagnabbit. (A useful if self-serving moral for the older generation to impart to the next one.)

Second, stories serve the purpose of giving readers practice at dealing with tragedy. Every story has to have a conflict, as we know, and as we watch the protagonist grapple with the problem, we experience her suffering vicariously. Many stories center on not just a conflict, but a massive crisis or great loss. If we’ve already been through such a thing, we feel a sense of solace and companionship: someone understands our grief. If we haven’t been through such an event yet, stories give us a clue what it might be like. And when tragedy befalls us (as it must, because we are human), stories give us a roadmap for how to survive it. Kids are usually required to read tearjerkers like Bridge to Terabithia or Where the Red Fern Grows for school, and these stories might be the first taste of loss and tragedy they have. It’s like a dry run. A fire drill. You go through the fake thing enough times and, when the real thing happens, you have at least some idea what to do.

A third purpose of the story, no less important than the other two, is to build bridges of empathy between individuals and even cultures. I have no idea what it’s like to be an escaped slave facing a man trying to regain ownership of me and my children, but after reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved, I have some small sense of that horror. I don’t know what it’s like to be a grindingly poor Indian peasant living under an oppressive caste system, but Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance gives me a glimpse into that dark world.

I suspect this is why we associate a well-read person with a wise person. In understanding our world, we need facts (what nonfiction is for) but we also need the emotional framework to understand those facts (what fiction is for). When I meet people who hate, despise, and fear others, I assume I’m meeting someone who is under-read. Someone who hasn’t had the advantage of stories, which allow us to experience another life, feel another pain or joy or sorrow than our own. We won’t cure racism by insisting everyone read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Invisible Man, but it would help. I have a hard time believing anyone could get through Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns and not see Afghanistan in a whole new light than the one we get from the evening news.


How does this help us as writers? If we think about what the consumers of our products really hunger for, what they’ve demanded from storytellers for millennia, we have a more focused reason to write than “because I have to.” We do it because stories really matter, and we know it. Storytelling is one of the deepest, oldest, and most important aspects of humanity.

So, why do you write?

Pink covers.

‘When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.’
--Enrique Jardiel Poncela, Spanish playwright and novelist, 1901-1952

There is a difference between being able to adequately assess whether or not the writing behind a project is good, and dismissing an entire sub-genre out of hand. Why is it that those projects which avail themselves of the rich trove of archetypal characterizations and plotlines and those which garner critical acclaim often congregate at opposite ends of the continuum?

To put it another way, why are the pocketbooks of the masses open for the presumably inferior devices of ‘commercial’ writing while the more refined eye of the intellectual elite appears to delight— if in a muted, ironic fashion— only in stories which regularly eschew the time-honored hero’s journey altogether?

Put yet another way, why is it that the Katherine Heigl vehicles and the Nancy Meyers projects consistently rake in the bucks while the depressing— arguably demoralizing— films and genres of literature mostly concerned with meeting Waterloo are often leagues ahead in racking up the ‘serious art’ brownie points? Why is there a disconnect between what the average heart races to consume— again and again— and what the above-average intelligence scrambles to approve of? And— perhaps most importantly— can we, as writers, heal the breach?

Is it tone? Is it execution? Or is it subject matter? Is it the difference between tying up all the loose bits at the end with a tidy bow and leaving the characters flailing in a vat of angst and lack of resolution that determines the credibility conferred upon a work? Is it all of these things? Is it any of them?

Perhaps it’s compression, the sense that if the writing is swiftly and methodically touching all of the mile markers— the call, the reluctance to answer, the introduction of allies, obstacles, heightened stakes, the turning point, the moment of grace with— on celluloid— the gratuitous close-up, the dark moment which more often than not smacks of contrivance at the end of act two chased by the scene with a manufactured sense of urgency as it barrels toward resolution— that leaves certain readers/viewers cold with the awareness that attempts at emotional manipulation are underway. Well, naturally, all experience of art is an exercise in emotional manipulation. The question then becomes is the manipulation seamless or do the seams show? And my question to you— as the writers responsible for many of these journeys— is why do the seams show more consistently in the stuff that sells?

I recently watched a Katherine Heigl film with the express purpose of dismantling the experience in order to study it. There was a row of women behind me in the theatre who laughed a lot. They peppered my viewing experience with exclamations of, ‘Oh, snap!’ and— in the moment that the boy does in fact return to the girl at the end of act three— ‘I knew it!’ When the lights went up, they cheered.

In other words, these women were moved enough by unapologetically formulaic premise, plot and execution to grow noisy and applaud— though it must be said that, personally, I gave Heigl herself a fair amount of the credit. In any event, the consumers got what they paid for. And as I sat there in my movie bucket seat next to a fellow scribe along for the experimental ride, a jumble of thoughts rushed through both mind and heart— the most salient of which were, for whom am I writing? And why?

Is my writing trying to be an artful interpretation of human experience? A commentary that is ethical in nature? Moralistic? Subversive? Sublime? Is it trying to emerge as something which pulls a more visceral punch or something that—perhaps, finally, by unabashed design— simply goes down easy? I know I want my readers to feel, but how do I want them to feel? Do I want them to laugh? Cry? Both— often? Or do I want them to think? Do I want to rout expectation or do I want to take them where they’re paying me to lead— straight through the reliable climb of escalating emotion and down a safe descent into surprising inevitability? Can I even decide— with authority— and, if so, do I have the chops to carry out any intentions with excellence?

Though a novelist, the bulk of my night stand material— say, 85%?— is non-fiction. When it comes to story, you might call me immoderately particular. I like a smart read, but not one that is too heavy. I’m partial to sharp banter between expertly-drawn voices but not too many graphic scenarios (or any, really.) I like to read characters stripped of their complacency but not of their dignity and— if at all possible— with a light touch. I favor subtlety but not authorial conceit. I like to laugh but not at the expense of substance and I like to grow but not at the (total) expense of levity. But perhaps most of all, I like to be left on an auspicious— but not hackneyed— note.

Which leads me to wonder, is it possible to write a book that can translate to a two-hour capsule— easily consumed with a side of popcorn and Junior Mints— which at the same time does not inspire the roll of a more discriminating eye? Because to imagine that a description like ‘bubble-gum pink’ covers the scope of the contemporary female living— largely through accident of birth— in an industrialized society as she grapples with vocation, love and progeny is both an indignation and a challenge.

So— in the end— does the onus of responsibility land on us as writers to execute these reputedly bromidic arcs in such a way that the dismissal of the erudite is not a foregone conclusion? Forgive me, as I seem to be all questions, today— and with precious little in the way of answers— but I’m stumped, and have been so for a rather annoyingly long time.

Perhaps you can shine some light along the way?

Until next time, dear reader.

Your,
-Aurora