[Writerpreneurl] Day 17 - Lesson 0301: What Readers Insist the Writer Choose as a Subject
Where we find the reader insisting the writer make certain choices to keep them interested...
What do you choose to write about?
Does your choice of a subject influence how well you will write - and what readers will resonate with you?
We’ve been told to write what we know best. And editors recommend we write about “interesting people” - meaning criminals, chorus girls, millionaires...
Victor Hugo said long ago that there are no good or bad subjects - the quality of the story depended on that author’s skill and execution.
Some people among us say that we should avoid sensitive subjects. Practical people tell us to write what will sell on the market.
The poet Horace has left the first real clue to answering this, when he remarked along the lines that if you want the reader to weep, you must first shed tears yourself.
So, what the writer writes about must be interesting enough that it arouses a lively emotion.
An aroused imagination is necessary to capture their characters vividly, as well as the scenes and themes. Yet this imagination seldom comes to bat unless we are ourselves intensely interested in the subject.
All these very real and enchanting people in these books and stories - why do we care about them? We care because the author cared. That writer found them interesting - and he knew how to infuse that interest in us.
An excellent subject is one that stirs the interest and emotion - and so fire the imagination - of the writer. Because if that subject doesn’t do this, it doesn’t matter how many others get excited about it. It’s your own reactions that count.
Over the long run, the test of any writing shows only the quality of the imagination at hand during that work. When the writer is intensely interested in the people and scenes, when he possesses an endless curiosity - then those people and scenes become vivid and real. This enables the writer to make them real for his readers.
Anything which interests you will interest others - if you write it skillfully.
So you want to choose a subject which has interested you for so long and so intensely that you know all about it - or a subject that you may not know everything, but you have an intense desire to study it.
And that is why people forget hack writers and journalists. The long shelves outside used bookstores are filled with dull books, stupid plays, insipid stories. This is also why gifted amateurs can sometimes surpass the work that trained (but uninterested) professional writers turn in. Skill, style, and technique aren’t enough for quality literature. Top-flight work always has passionate imaging. There is a subjective intensity. And you can feel the genius at work, taking pains to get it just so.
In short, your success as a writer depends on your wise choice of a subject. If you have one you can put your heart and back into it, then you may succeed. If you have it in you to succeed from the start.
When you choose a subject that belongs to you, fascinate you, embroil you -your work will prove to be a lifelong pleasure. Then your publisher and your readers will insist that you keep doing what has pleased them before.