Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
Okay, what is then?
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The point of fiction is to tell a story, one with coherence, cohesiveness and integrity. That's all it owes to the reader. Appeals to the emotions, whether in regard to likability of characters or the ability to identify with them or live through them are cheap if intentional. Readers who seek these things as a requirement will miss out on much, although as Harry said upthread, there's nothing inherently wrong with a cracking good read. But what a reader brings to a story or hopes to get from it is his responsibility; it's not the responsibility of a story to provide them; the story's only responsibility is to itself.
I am not overlooking the need of the writer in most cases to make his living. Nothing wrong with that; writing to market is probably not the path to great literature, but it might turn out to have been, once the dust settles. It's the exception, however. Few things are as dull as many of yesteryear's best-sellers and most of the best are eminently forgettable.