my last future reader
Here, I wondered about who my first future reader will be.
Today, it dawned on me who my “last” future reader will be; the opposite end of the spectrum: the person who reads one book a year, or maybe one book in his (or her) whole life, barring high school when you can’t really get around that.
Now, imagine that person–somebody who is so preoccupied with other things that reading simply doesn’t have any appeal. Imagine her friend gave her my book, saying “this is cool, probably you should read it”, and she does.
First, the obvious thing: if my book is her only shot at literature, it just has to be good. After all, for a newbie reader, every page is a struggle. If my book was her only shot in a decade, it just has to give a reward for reading it.
Next, the less obvious thing: I must treat her like a blank page. She doesn’t know what other books are out there and my book just has to stand on its own without the crutches of past geniuses.
For example, Terry Pratchett. I wasn’t a fantasy geek when I first read his books. I hadn’t (and still haven’t) played Dungeons and Dragons. So oftentimes, I stopped somewhere and thought “this must be a joke and a funny one, too bad I don’t know exactly why it’s funny but I still get it”. This is why Terry Pratchett is a great author: while having read lots and lots of fantasy classics helps a lot to get the subtle jokes, it is still fun even without this background. Even without knowing how D&D works, I still get the magic system of gods.
Another example: a book “Nedotepa” by Russian author Lukyanenko. That’s a cool and funny book, with lots of references to modern culture. For example, the apprentice has a magic book that is called “ipod” (a funny word-play in Russian, and a long story). I keep wondering – if, in ten years, or twenty, I read this book and I don’t know what iPod is, will that name of the book still make sense? (Also, should he care? I don’t know.)
So here’s the conclusion: a great book must be great regardless of how many other books (and which books) the reader has read. Given a reasonable amount of readers, they would have, cumulatively, read way more books than I ever have (and ever could possibly read). Also, each of them will be blissfully unaware of most of the things I have read.
If your book has vampires, some of your readers will know nothing about the idea of a sparkling vampire. Some of your readers will have read everything about porphyria and will invariably wonder have you done your homework on vampirism. Some will know another tiny bits of information that you might or might have not employed.
A great book doesn’t assume anything about the reader, her knowledge basis, her education, her culture and things she considers “natural”, “commonplace” or “obvious”. Everything the reader needs is in there already.
