Wednesday, November 19, 2008

As If Non-Readers Care Anyway

Seems we don't need publishers pushing us into making our novels more 'accessible' for non-readers when we've got Lionel Shriver.
Literature is not very popular these days, to put it mildly. According to the National Endowment for the Arts, nearly half of Americans do not read books at all, and those who do average a mere six a year. You'd think literary writers would be bending over backwards to ingratiate themselves to readers -- to make their work maximally accessible, straightforward and inviting. But no.
Dan Green and his commenters explain why her argument, which focuses on speech punctuation, is outrageous.

5 comments:

Debi said...

Interesting. She spoke at a library event near me a couple of weeks ago, though unfortunately I found out too late to go.

Someone told me that an audience member mentioned how many authors talk about their characters leading them into places they (the author) didn't expect. Ms S's response was that she NEVER EVER relinquishes control over her story's direction.

Each to their own, I guess.

Elizabeth Baines said...

Hi Debi.

Shriver always sems to rouse feathers, doesn't she? Or maybe it's that her feathers are often roused...

nmj said...

Ha, I didn't use quote marks in my book for the simple reason they are too damn tiring to type! I don't think the dialogue has suffered as a result - in fact I am constantly being told how easy the book is to read! I think she's getting her knickers in a twist about nothing, and as far as accessible goes, I found Shriver's We Need to Talk about Kevin a pretty hard read (though I did really enjoy it).

Elizabeth Baines said...

Yes, Nasim, your book is certainly a smooth read.

Apart from which, I think that some of the things she lists as disadvantages in lack of speech marks can in fact be virtues...

It depends what you're trying to do, surely, and we're all trying to do different things, both from each other, in each different piece we write.

nmj said...

Exactly. To me, it is a personal choice, one is not superior to the other! It seems bizarre that she writes off all novels that use dialogue w/out quote marks. I agree there were times when my dialogue could perhaps have seemed unclear, but I compensated for this by inserting he says/she says afterwards to clarify who was actually speaking. I also prefer to write without quotes, apart from the energy thing. I honestly didn't give it much consideration, it just happened. Had no idea I was being pretentious!