Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
It is nice to see that I am not completely alone in thinking that writing to your audience is important. I am curious to see the number of people that think that educating that audience is somehow part of good writing. If you're writing text books then I can see that is important, but if you're writing a novel then I don't see that as the author's job. I think that reading is good for people's minds, regardless of whether it directly expands their vocabulary - simply exercising your imagination is a good thing I think, and a book does not have to be technically spotless to achieve that. I am generally suspicious of books advertised as "good for me".
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Any writer will write to an audience. When you sit down to write a novel, you have at least some idea of what story you are trying to tell, and who you are trying to tell it to. Your concept of who you are telling it to will affect the way in which you tell it.
But I think you're applying too narrow a definition of "educating". Just about any good novel will teach the reader something. In some cases, it's explicit, like the historical novel where the author does research to provide verisimilitude - all the little details that transport you to a different place and time. Or the "police procedural" mystery, where the author will be at some pains to accurately depict exactly
how the cops go about solving the crime, because the how is the point of the story.
Even in a mainstream novel, lessons are imparted, about the lives we lead and our relationships with others. Those lessons are what the books are about.
The trick is doing what SF writer Robert A. Heinlein advised: "Don't
tell them,
show them!", and incorporating the background seamlessly as part of the story instead of indigestible expository lumps.
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Dennis