To The Reader

Our Pact

Ok, so we’re not talking blood oath here or anything like that. No one cut their palm and slapped it against someone else’s bloody palm. We aren’t talking vows or promises. There’s no “til death us do part” going on here. What we’re talking about is that moment when you pick the thing up or click on the thing or download the thing. The thing you’re thinking of reading.

You know that moment. When you hope TF whoever wrote it isn’t yanking you around or going for the cheap unearned epiphany. When you hope that whoever wrote this abides by the pact.

Writing isn’t some isolated cry into the void even though it often feels exactly like that. Reading isn’t some closeted, shut-away experience even though that, too, can often feel like it’s the case. I’m writing now, knowing that eyes will be on this and brains will be ticking along, word by paragraph, parsing and hoping. I want to deliver. You want me to. This is our pact.

The reader’s part

I knew from the age of four that reading was some kind of magic. There was something powerful and mysterious going on there. I’d sit on Mom’s lap and watch her eyes play over the page and listen to what she was saying. She was saying words, but they weren’t her words. Something was being transmitted from the page to her eyes and then her brain and out of her mouth.

I had to have that secret. I burned with need on my first day of kindergarten. Guess what I received? The capital letter “A” and the little letter “a”.

When I was seven years old I tackled “Black Beauty” (and yes, I was also horse crazy). The writer, Anna Sewell, quite certainly observed her part of the pact, but that pact didn’t extend to seven-year-olds — the book was intended for adult audiences of 1877. Oh, how I struggled with that book. But I, by God, finished it. A very short three years later I picked “Black Beauty” up again and almost didn’t open it. When I did, I flew through that book. It sang to me. It opened to me. It was glorious.

Now I could read well enough to fulfill my part of the pact.

I come to everything I read ready to do that again. I’m rooting for the writer, I want their words to do that magic. I think most people who love to read do the same. Real readers, hungry readers, curious and committed and boundless readers come to each thing they choose ready to hold up their end of the bargain. Whether they realize it or not or can even articulate it, the ardent readers are ready to fulfill their part of the pact.

They — we — open up. We’re here to go wherever the writer takes us.

The writer’s part

Whoever starts this writing thing usually doesn’t do so aiming for any particular sets of eyes/brains. Some do, no doubt, but many of us fall into the deep end of the pool not quite ready to do a strong breaststroke. We dog paddle around and splash and make a mess. We have no idea of the pact, the power of that pact, the necessity of that pact.

We — ok, I — wrote a lot of crap. Stories with weak endings or those that I simply abandoned. Cringe-inducing poetry. Character sketches that bordered on caricature.

And through all those years, I was reading. Disappearing into other times, other worlds, other histories. As I’d approach the end of some books a great grief would rise. I would soon have to leave this haven. The writer had been true to our pact and so had I.

And I kept on writing.

About thirty years ago, I wrote one complete short story. One very good short story. My writing professor at the time wrote in the margins “You will be a publishing writer. I guarantee it.” It was nice to get that pat on the head, I liked being told my work is good (still do). But that’s not what hooked me. What did that was having the divine experience of writing the second to last paragraph of the story and out of nowhere floated the most perfect final sentence. A sentence that artfully and completely pulled everything in that story into one tight and elegant whole. I didn’t know it, but that was the first time I, as a writer, completely fulfilled my part of the pact.

I entertained. I engaged. I opened myself to the unknown reader and showed them their own thoughts and feelings and even, maybe, their own experiences.

We all break the pact

As readers and writers, we try to come to each page, each paragraph, each sentence with a great willingness to be open, to engage, to do this glorious dance together.

But it has to be said that we often stumble. And after several stumbles, the pact can get a little threadbare.

I’m not the malleable, ready-for-anything reader I once was. I’m ready to hold up my end of our agreement, but only if you indicate that you’ve got the goods. My rule of thumb with books is that you’ve got 50 pages to demonstrate you’re ready to deliver. With short stories and essays, two to three paragraphs tops. Poetry? Three lines.

Charm me, seduce me, delight and confound and tickle me. And, for Christ’s sake, do not bore me.

Boredom violates the pact.

So as the writer my primary objectives are to charm, seduce, delight and confound and tickle. Every single time I start making these magic squiggly marks on a screen. No excuses and no A’s for effort. In fact, effort is the enemy of the pact. If you can see how hard I’m working to engage you, it’s a given that you’re gone. When I’m in peak form I make it look like an easy walk alongside the lake at sunset. A walk you’re eager to join.

How often do I manage this feat? Not nearly often enough. But I’m always here to give it my best shot. Why? Because I know you’re here. You’re here and hungry and open and ready to give me a chance. It’s my responsibility to do my very best to not let you down.

How am I doing so far?

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