Readers vs. Viewers
Or, Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want
WARNING—PRETENTIOUS WRITER BULLSHIT, DEAD AHEAD
Last weekend I went to a literary festival on Long Island, NY. A genre affair featuring hyper-popular, commercial thriller writers and readers. Attracts the kinds of big-name authors who can live off their advances. A few friends of mine attended. I pressed them for publishing intel. What kinds of projects editors are acquiring. What’s the market for the kinds of novels I write?
Escapism.
The word popped up constantly. That’s what readers want. Novels set in our time, but do not engage with our time. No heavy themes, just entertaining stories featuring likable characters. I heard this from writers, readers, publicists. Damned near everyone. No one wants their crime fiction confronting our current cultural moment. And I get a need for this kind of entertainment. I love Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible series more than anyone. Popcorn movies sell huge (at least they used to), and cinema was, for nearly a century, the shared currency of popular culture. Attracted the broadest base. But books, I was taught, was where the deep thinking action’s at. Readers are empathetic and curious. Willing to face the world we’re stuck with. If you’ve got something capital-I Important to say, you wrote a book. My last two novels addressed the demon seed of hyper-aggressive policing and New York City’s shift into gentrification overdrive. Neither sold (though the second came real close).
Since taking me on, my agent has urged me to keep writing stories that aim big. Novels that say something have a better chance of breaking out, he tells me. I believe him. Crime fiction has long been the place to examine class, race, money, entrenched hate, stunning acts of compassion, and complex characters doomed by chance and choice into situations that have no easy outs. Dostoyevsky. Poe. Christie. Highsmith. Thomson. Hammett. Chandler. O’Conner. Winslow. Flynn. Lehane. Pelecanos. Price. They all use crime to explore persistent truths and society’s weight on individuals. On Long Island everyone cared only about wild premises and TikTok trends. Stuff like, “What if the killer………….WAS ALSO THE VICTIM?!?!?!!?!?!??!?”
Escapism, yeah?
Sigh.
Full disclosure: I can’t do what top-tier genre writers do. And my reaction to those kinds pitches no doubt comes from a place of jealousy. Then again, I don’t want to write “summer beach read” books, even if I could. My whole reading life, I always responded to grounded, relatable stories that dug deep into theme. I read to feel, not to anesthetize myself. And I look now at the books stacked tall on Barnes & Noble tables and wonder if readers no longer want to feel. Witness the rise of romantasy and speculative fiction. Has the world become too much for people? I hope not, because turning away from a dumpster fire isn’t going to put it out.
I drove home Saturday (I left early) depressed and questioning my commercial viability. Writing is beautiful and rewarding in itself. Trying to get published resembles the torture scene in Casino Royale (the fellas know what I’m talking about). As I wondered what I should do with the rest of my life, I cued up a podcast. The Watch discusses television and is co-hosted by Andy Greenwald, a critic and writer currently staffed on Warner Brothers’ upcoming Harry Potter reboot. While I don’t always agree with Greenwald’s takes, he’s in Hollywood. Takes meetings with execs who have greenlight power. He knows better than me what kind of projects Hollywood’s looking for from long-form storytelling. And it isn’t sensationalistic escapism.
Well, it is. But they’re also open to something more.
Greenwald rattled off a series of successful shows centering on believable men and women facing relatable challenges: The Pitt; Adolescence; Your Friends and Neighbors; Nobody Wants This; A Man on the Inside. According to him, producers and studios are not only open to these kinds of grounded stories, they’re actively seeking them out. I watched and was moved by Adolescence. But four hours tracking why a thirteen-year-old boy killed his schoolmate is the opposite of escapism. Yet Adolescence is on pace to be Netflix’s biggest English-language show EVER. Is its success a product of reach? Netflix has hundreds of millions of subscribers. But not every show breaks out. Is it possible that TELEVISION VIEWERS—long labeled the least curious of cultural consumers—actually want sophisticated adult dramas like Adolescence? And Hollywood—an industry slow to change—senses this, and is responding? When’d that tail start wagging the dog?
Two of the biggest books of this year are Onyx Storm, a romantasy (blend of romance and fantasy) by Rebecca Yarros, and Surprise On the Reaping, the newest Hunger Games novel, by Suzanne Collins. While I assume they explore basic human emotions (I haven’t read either), they are not reflective of our world. Reading a novel takes hours and hours. Allows readers to get lost in the story. What’s it say about the state of cultural play when so many want to spend their time in a fantasy? Am I a member of an ever-shrinking demo that wants to read novels that punch me in the gut? Make me consider—and reconsider—the society in which I participate? Make me think? Make me bleed?
Maybe I am. Maybe.
This essay is the product of anecdotal evidence based on a single festival. I can’t draw industry-wide conclusions. Literary fiction is addressing our collective illnesses; check out Tony Tulathimutte’s incel-themed story collection, Rejection. But I’m a crime guy. And the crime fiction I grew up with was gritty and harsh. Showed me bloody scenes and societal hypocrisies. Novels shaped my world, and twenty years of police work shaped my writing. I can’t be something I’m not. But over two nights on Long Island I felt that world slipping away.
I realize I sound a bit uppity. Not a great look for a never-published novelist. Every book is a miracle, and I respect authors, regardless of my interest in their work. After unloading my feelings on an editor friend, they told me they’re still looking for nuanced books tackling current issues. That there’s still room on shelves for those kinds of novels. I hope so. Because if not, I gotta start having ideas. Which gets me thinking…
What if the killer…WAS ALSO THE KILLER?
No? Shit, you’re right. That’s stupid. Damn it. I told you that stuff’s tough to write! But if you want 85,000 dark words on our moral failings, I’m your man. Those kinds of books don’t sell huge. But they serve their readers. And that’s you, just know you’re not alone.
fwiw i dont think its readers who are gunshy, i think its publishing. for example: agents and editors for decades were saying, This needs tension, this needs conflict. and at the same exact time tens of thousands of people were reading coffeeshop fanfic where there isnt much tension or conflict. the guy who wrote The Art of Racing in the Rain was dumped by his agent because "no one wants to read a book from the POV of a dog." I'm willing to bet that the only reason we got to see that book (a massive bestseller) is because a different agent and editor guessed (correctly.) they assume what we want, and they often assume wrong, and they often assume "well they liked beefaroni, so lets give them more beefaroni" which isn't really innovative. I'm willing to guess that when we get to see my third book in print it will be HUGELY a function of whether or not it gets into the hands of an editor who has personally experienced some of the stuff in the book--that has nothing to do with the actual market. i wish i had better advice than keep on truckin, or perhaps consider if you could do something commercial that also addresses some of the things youd like it to.
Fuck them. We need to keep writing shit that knocks their teeth out and then laugh as they try to bite into their next sugar enriched, calorie free 700 page totem of bullshit. You’re on my team.
The article below I wrote about exactly this.
https://open.substack.com/pub/killyourreaders/p/they-dont-want-delillo-they-want?r=4jealx&utm_medium=ios