It's Bi-Way or the Highway When It Comes to Books

A lot of writers out there prefer the other expression:

And, let's be honest, so do a lot of readers.

A My Way writer expects crowds to follow wherever his book wants to go--screw any and all expectations or rules. So readers run into undisciplined books filled with boring or madcap digressions...promising scenes that peter out or veer off in other directions...characters that disappear or are completely inconsistent...Or the novels seem unending--hundreds of thousands, even millions, of words. Literary circuses of font colors and typographical stunts.

A My Way reader wants a book that resembles other books written the way s/he feels books should be done. I met a lot of My Way readers in the ten years I worked in two book stores. In the Mystery section, some readers were ultra-specific. They wanted books by either male or female authors only: Sue Grafton, Jonathan Kellerman, Sarah Paretsky, Robert Crais. Or they wanted mysteries set in particular cities with male or female heroes who work in their own professions: banking, advertising, etc. Furthermore, they wanted books written in the Right Style: cozy or hardboiled, slowburning or quick, character or plot-based.

This isn't meant to ridicule either My Way writers or readers. Still, the extreme My Way writer resembles a delusional online game tyrant. In the 80's, when Horror was huge, a few of the bigger names liked to proclaim: Screw your agent and/or your publisher if they give you any grief--write whatever you want and then move along if you have to. Some writers took it to the next level: screw the reader too--our job's to write, their job's to read. There's no read to wonder where such writers are today...or their books. The real world, including the real reading world, simply doesn't work that way,

But don't stop there. The extreme My Way reader resembles a porn aficionado.

Extreme My Way readers can't get into a novel that fails to meet all their specifics--from the hero's height to where s/he works to the style of the prose. A repeat experience is the supreme goal...just as it is with adult films. Take your pick from endless lists: black, white, Asian...oral or anal,..soft or garish lighting...splashy or unsplashy...

Getting back, though, to writing and reading: Bi-Way or the Highway offers more elegant kicks and rewards.

A Bi-Way writer finds freedom in following--and occasionally breaking--the conventions of his/her art. When s/he breaks the rules, it's with the reader in mind, a shock-enhanced experience. Whether s/he writes plainly or likes to ride the purple page, again it's with thoughts of the reader's delight. 

A Bi-Way reader seeks a fresh, not a repeat, experience. This reader has a comfort zone that s/he likes to indulge. There are types of rides that s/he likes best. But s/he is always open to something totally different...so long as it's done well. The style may be plainer or packed with more word play, more thoughtful or thought-free than his/her usual fare. S/he doesn't mind. S/he only cares that the writer does ask with his/her pleasure in mind:

Re-Reading: Those Beautiful Big Dipper Books

Recently I asked on Facebook if other readers had books they'd returned to over and over again. I'd been thinking, in fact, of nonfiction: especially books so dense in wisdom that a single reading is nowhere near enough. Our understanding of some books is too 'heady' and not in the blood or the bone. So we reread certain books to come a little closer to 'getting' what they teach, instead of a 'Yeah, okay' reaction. Or, another way of putting that:

My FB post attracted some interesting responses: from John Molloy's New Dress for Success to Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, from a martial arts combat manual to a writing guide. Two readers voted for one book I know I've got to read: The Power of Now by Eckhart. With one exception we all agreed that some books be reading more than once...and some books can be revisited again and again through our lives.

But the one exception stunned me: This reader claimed that in his adult he has never re-read a book. He gets what he needs from a book, then moves on...and can recall influential passages from books he read fifteen years ago. The key phrases there would be getting all he needs from a book--and recalling influential passages.

Could anyone who's read The Prince, The Art of War or The Book of Five Rings--all tiny books on strategy--claim to really 'get them', in the most meaningful way, after just one reading? Limiting our sights to nonfiction, surely there's a huge difference between understanding something intellectually and having mastered the subject. I could write a detailed review or essay on Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. Yet, after all these years, I still have miles to go toward mastery of its lessons.

I have a handful of life study books--and I find that when I return to them I bring something new to the table each time....and walk off with something new.

Expanding our sights now to fiction as well:

You know when you hear a piece of music once, you haven’t heard it properly, you want to hear it again. A well-made book will reward you in exactly the same way as music does, in that you will understand and love a piece. You’ll feel the cadence and depth of it and hear things in it all the time. If you pay it a little more attention, it will reward you, like all art. Like everything, actually.
--Ali Smith

A classic is a book which with each rereading offers as much of a sense of discovery as the first reading.
--Italo Calvino

Thou shalt not let a day pass without rereading something great.
--Stephen Vizinczey