Risk

pabulum
Main Entry: pab·u·lum
Pronunciation: \ˈpa-byə-ləm\

Function: noun

Etymology: Latin, food, fodder; akin to Latin pascere to feed — more at food

Date: 1733

1 : food; especially : a suspension or solution of nutrients in a state suitable for absorption
2 : intellectual sustenance
3 : something (as writing or speech) that is insipid, simplistic, or bland

Terrible stuff, really, and without naming names, there's a lot of it about. The reasons there's a lot of it about are the same reasons there's a lot of fast food about: it's easy to produce, easy to sell, and it comes with french fries and a soda.

Now, as a creative-type person, there's always a stage of development where you're determined to avoid producing the artistic equivalent of baby cereal. Some people then sail right through that stage and head straight on into producing what they think will sell. Some people are so fabulously successful at this that they manage to convince people that whatever they're producing is, in fact, what will sell, which is its own kind of brilliance that transcends mere pabulum and becomes a sort of Uber Pap (see Koons, Jeff). Other people remain so utterly dedicated to their own vision, shutting out all external input or criticism and producing perfect, individual gems of unique and unparalleled personal artistry (see...well, you've never heard of him. No one has. Not even me.).

For writing, in particular, there has to be a certain balance between accessibility and artistic risk. If you decide that your personal vision of a novel eschews all grammar, punctuation, capital letters, and paragraph breaks, you're going to have to be prepared to satisfy yourself and a select few. This is less true of the visual arts, I think, although I'm no expert in that field (or any other, for that matter). For me, personally, it's easier to engage with Pollock's Number 1 than it would be with its written equivalent¹ because the function of language is in itself representational, and if you decide to do away with that you've done something other than write. Disjointed written imagery still represents the content of the image, disjointed words do a similar sort of thing, and disjointed letters brings you into the realm of representational phonetics and sound. At a certain point it ceases to be writing.

From my perspective, the reason there has to be a certain balance between accessibility and artistic risk when writing is because I'm not alone in my endeavor. At the end of the process, when the drafts are revised to completion, there is you, the reader. So, within the bounds of my own vision of the story, and the limitations imposed by my characters, the risks I take are defined by what's going to make the story worth your time. I'm not here to prove my cleverness, I'm here to engage you. To divert you. To transport you into a world that I've created, so you can meet the people who live there.

Which doesn't mean that I'm a slave to my audience. What it means is that if there's a scene or plot point that I know will make for a better, more immersive reading experience, I'm going to write it, even if I'm not sure I can pull it off. For me, that is the essence of authorial risk: going places I don't know how to get to, trying things I'm not sure I can do.

I didn't know all of this for certain until last night at around 10:45PM, when I got out of bed, and wrote a short e-mail to my editor telling her to ignore the chapter I'd sent to her earlier that evening. That chapter represented the easier path, a path I was taking not because it would make for a better story, but because I couldn't quite figure out how to make the other path work. But I've decided to take the risk, because if I can make it work, it'll be really smashing, and I'll have learned how to do something new.

And thus! The book will be interesting, instead of a soft mixture of ground and precooked wheat, oatmeal, yellow corn meal, bone meal, dried brewer's yeast, and powdered alfalfa leaf. That's what y'all want, right? Interesting?

I thought so.