Things Learned from Readers

[Peg Herring]

I went to a book club meeting last night where my book, MACBETH'S NIECE, had been read. Everyone was very kind, and it was one of those gratifying experiences where you're treated as an expert and you feel a bit like an imposter playing the "Author" role.

The part that sticks with me this morning is the questions. These are all people who read, and from the general discussion I think they read decent material: good fiction and nonfiction too. They analyze things as a group, much like some of the class discussions I used to lead as a teacher, with "thought questions" handed out ahead of time that call for serious consideration and lead to meaningful discussion.

Despite that, I was asked questions that made me question my accessability to general readers. Things that I thought were patently obvious caused the group trouble. One woman asked, "Where did you get the idea for the three old crones at the beginning who predicted Tessa's future?" I hope I didn't sound patronizing when I answered.

Another confessed that she had to stop and look up quite a few words, like "thane" and "kirk". Still another asked if I knew all those words I used before I started or did I use a thesaurus to come up with them. That led to a question about how I found "foreign" words, by which the asker meant Scottish dialect. She had asked her husband, whose ancestors came from Scotland, to translate for her.

So what did I learn? That things I take for granted should not be. I'm no genius, for sure, but my years of teaching English have probably made me assume certain things, and you know what they say about that. While I would never "dumb down" my work, I will remind myself of these questions as I move onward, try to remember that this "English stuff" that I love is ancient history to most, both in actual years and in the length of time since they were exposed to it in school or college. And for many it wasn't necessarily love at first sight. It was learned as needed and then forgotten. So a thane is a Scottish lord, in case you didn't know. And there were witches in Shakespeare's play...the one called MACBETH.

[I. J. Parker]

Thanks, John D. That's the way I feel about it.

[John Dishon]

So, Peg, I wouldn't worry about it. Most likely the reader should be able to tell that "thane" is a title of nobility through the context of the sentence. Definitely don't dumb-down your work. There's been too much of that over the years as it is. I mean, Charles Dickens was popular fiction in his day; now look what we got.

[John Dishon]

Yeah, I.J., I don't like using foreign words either, unless there's no adequate English-equivalent. I don't like novels to read like travel guides. It doesn't make sense, if the characters are, say, Japanese, to have them talk to each other in English yet use some words in Japanese. Yeah, it's written in English for the reader's benefit because they whole book is written in English, but it is understood that the characters are really speaking Japanese. So to then use a Japanese word is weird. It's like the characters are saying a foreign word themselves. I like to think of books like that as being written in Japanese (or whatever language) and the story I'm writing is a translation of that.

That's why translated fiction always feels more authentic than English-speaking writers writing it, because these authors always seem to want to point out how much research they've done or whatever, or ooh look at this, this is exotic, while translated fiction is written normally because it's intended for native speakers. So I try to copy that style and not make concessions for the reader.

For example, in one short story I wrote, the characters are Chinese and I mentioned a man praying at an ancestral tablet. I didn't bother to explain what that is for the reasons given above, and because it doesn't really matter. If the reader gets it, great, they have a better understanding of the story, but if the reader doesn't know what an ancestral tablet is, that's okay, because the story is not about that anyway and you know the guy is praying, so you can infer some things through context.

I bought Gail Tsukiyama's THE STREET OF A THOUSAND BLOSSOMS and read one chapter and then quit because I got tired of her using so many foreign words when she didn't need to. Just stop pointing out how much you know about another culture and tell the damn story.

[I. J. Parker]

It's impossible to please everyone. I decided early on that I would use English words. Almost immediately someone complained that there were no or few Japanese words in the books. One guy thought it was reprehensible to refer to rice wine when it should be sake. Someone else gave the wrong Japanese term for stick-fighting, charging me with not knowing my stuff. Arrgh! Readers can be idiots.

[Peg Herring]

Historicals are particularly difficult word-wise. For example, Tessa visits a crannog, but we don't know what that is. There aren't even pictures of them available. But what a great nugget of information about life (and defense of it) in eleventh-century Scotland!

[Jack Getze]

I have to disagree with B.R. here, although I'd say the writing community is pretty much split on this. I hate big or unusual words. I think they get in the way of clarity and understanding. I will drop a writer and a book very quickly if he keeps sending me to the dictionary. I want to read the STORY, not improve my vocabulary.

[B.R.Stateham]

I wouldn't worry too much about this. A book, be it fiction or non-fiction, should both stretch the imagination and the vocabulary. If the reader doesn't know what a word means it gives them a 'mission' to find out.

[Dana King]

Not to seem contrarian, but be subtle with this. Few things take me out of abook faster than an author who feels the need to explain everything. If you're not sure if readers will automatically pick up on a word or reference, leave them some cluse so they can figure it out. Too much explanation will tend to frustrate your readers who already get it, and they're your core readership.