Authorial Responsibilities (WAS: Nimbus question)

[David <dfrankiswork@netscape.net>]

I don't write fiction so I may be missing some points here...

Elkins wrote:

> I absolutely do not believe that authors have a responsibility 
> to write for the broadest possible audience.  

> Most popular authors truly aren't pandering; 
> for the most part, they come by their popularity honestly.  I 
> don't think that we would have very much at all in the way of 
> enjoyable fiction if authors regularly operated under the 
assumption 
> that their goal should be to strive to reach the widest of all 
> conceivable audiences.

I'm not sure I fully understand here.  First, two small nitpicks:  

1) I can see why pandering would usually lead to poor fiction, but 
not why it is dishonest.

2) Also, it's one thing to make popularity your goal, another to 
admit you don't exclude it 

My real question though is to do with breadth and popularity.  I'm 
not sure they are the same thing.  I will come back to this under 
commissioning below.

> When it comes right down to it, I actually think it rather 
> cheeky for readers to try to dictate the content or direction 
> of an author's work -- particularly when the work in question 
> is an amateur work of fiction for which the author is not even 
> getting *paid.*

Now here we have a new distinction: reader rights versus authorial 
responsibilities.  I think if I were a fiction author I would resent 
readers trying to influence my writing, sure.  But I might still 
feel a responsibility to them.  I think they're different things.
> 
> To be brutally crass here, if you are *commissioning* a work 
> of writing, then I believe you can make a case for your "right" 
> to dictate its content or style.  Publishers do get to dictate.  
> That is because they are the ones holding the purse strings.  
> Professional writers understand this, and people who write for 
> a living learn how to go about writing to spec.  When they do 
this, 
> though, they generally do expect to get *paid.*  Few people relish 
> the idea of writing to someone else's specifications unless there's
> going to be a check in the mail.

Now here I must disagree, unless I am one of the few.  I don't write 
fiction, but I do write a lot.  I write technical reports for paying 
customers.  I don't think I could do it if I didn't enjoy it.  There 
is a great deal of pleasure to be had from getting across the thing 
you want to say within the constraints under which you are 
operating.  (Doubtless some of my colleagues would claim that my 
reports are fiction ;-) )  It's a challenge.

And this type of writing has associated responsibilities you haven't 
mentioned at all.  The responsibility to be truthful.  To be 
unambiguous - ironically enough to ensure as far as possible that 
what the reader interprets is *exactly* what you intend (surely 
lawyers and list moderators must have to do this too) and nothing 
else.  A deal of effort, I'd say, goes into reviewing reports and 
looking for 'subversive' readings with the intention of rewriting to 
make them impossible.  Not just technical errors, you understand, 
but political (in the sense of organisational politics) implications.

I don't know if any of this is at all applicable to fiction writing -
 the only thing I can extrapolate from my experience is that I would 
like to feel that my readers understand what I'm writing.  Any 
thoughts?

> Not everyone is dominated by 
> the desire for popularity, and since people don't make any money 
off 
> of fanfiction anyway, one of the major incentives to cater to 
popular 
> tastes is absent.  The amateur writer is liberated from the 
pressures 
> of the marketplace -- which for many people is actually 
amateurism's 
> greatest appeal.

Hm.  I wonder what popularity does to fanfic authors when they get 
it though.  I'm sure I could get a taste for it without any money.

David