Quote:
Originally Posted by bhartman36
I don't doubt that people can learn to enjoy reading. The question is, can you enjoy literature when you're used to reading crap? (Define crap any way you want.) The more writers that write down to their audiences, the more this will become the norm -- especially if that's where the money is.
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Sure you can, but first you have to enjoy
reading.
I certainly didn't start with great literature as a kid. I started with the sorts of things kids read for fun. I grew to appreciate better writing as I got older and gained experience, and started to get a feel for what made plots work, characters compelling, and prose good.
I was helped by the fact that I always
liked to read, but appreciation of literature is a
learned skill. If you don't like to read in the first place, you are unlikely to invest the effort needed to learn it.
Quote:
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If writers are producing books for people who don't like to read, the quality of writing and reading both suffer. I don't see any way to avoid that conclusion.
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I can't think of anyone who
intentionally "writes down" to a perceived audience level, save for folks writing Juvenile/YA books. And there, the restrictions are likely to be on unfamiliar vocabulary or adult situations a kid might not be expected to grasp. (And writing
good Juvenile/YA work is
hard.)
I doubt that Stephanie Meyer, for example, thinks she's writing down to her audience and intentionally writing crap because it will sell. She's striking an emotional chord and is wildly popular, but writes for an audience that hasn't yet acquired the experience to have any meaningful standard of comparison.
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Dennis