What Do Readers Want?

A ripping engrossing yarn

Once upon a time, the tale was the only form of lie that was made to entertain us. There were no plays, and songs that told lies were tales, after all. The entertaining lie was made up, then, of words.

Today, novels, short stories, and what falls between, are the descendants of this tradition. But today, along with these lies told with words, we can amuse ourselves with lies told with images, and interactive sights and sounds, and recorded plays.

Each of these forms of lies must, therefore, satisfy whatever is our basic need for entertaining lies, and must do so in its own best-suited way.

In some countries, literacy and reading tales is unsurpassed in history. In other countries, literacy is declining, and tales no longer hold the crown. There are movies and television and videogames, and these vie for the crown.

When, therefore, we ask the question ‘What do readers want?’ we are asking more than ‘How do tales entertain us?’ We want to know that, but we also want to know how it is that written tales in particular entertain us. What is the unique appeal of the written word to amuse, enthrall, mystify, engross, and satisfy?

I ask the question rhetorically of my readers who are talesmen. Because you know the answer, after all. All of you are readers, and all of you have chosen to devote considerable time to making your own tales, for yourself and other readers.

Why don’t you make movies instead? Why don’t you make comics?

What do you get out of a novel that no movie or comic can offer?

What is the secret delight of the soul alone with itself, in the spell of the symbol that is the word, mere squiggles of ink on the page or pixels on the screen, that opens up into a universe that surrounds and enchants?

What do readers want?

What do you want, when you read?

(Composed on keyboard Sunday, June 29, 2008)