This is an interesting quote from writer and critic Geoff Dyer (via the Independent and Two Raven's Press Blog) for those who worry about doing the right thing in order to get published:

Anyone who has an eye on the market is not a writer but a whore. Nothing wrong with being a whore, of course – just don’t try to make out you’re a writer. Writers sometimes talk of pressure from their publishers to do this or that in order to be more commercial. Nine times out of ten this is sophistry and cowardice… I have this existential conception of writing not as a career but as a back-against-the wall option, the thing you turn to when you’ve got no other way of making a mark on the world. In those circumstances, whether or not you’re going to be adequately recompensed is irrelevant.

Yes, yes, yes - the old one about how the writer really ought to have his or her own artistic vision and all that - but it's all a bit shrill and self-justifying, isn't it? I keep imagining the words 'writer' and 'whore' in that piece capitalised.

I thought the main argument against chasing the market is that it doesn't work.

I think in some cases it simply comes down to a question of: Would you accept the Agent/Editor's vision for the book and make the suggested changes, accordingly, and get published, or not.
It always amazes me that there are a proportion of writers out there who decide that artistic integrety is more important than publication - and then wonder why they can't get it published.


- NaomiM

it's all a bit shrill and self-justifying, isn't it?

Yes, very.

the thing you turn to when you’ve got no other way of making a mark on the world. In those circumstances, whether or not you’re going to be adequately recompensed is irrelevant.

Well you're not going to make much of a mark on the world if you can't get it sold and published, are you? And if you want to spend enough time to follow your determination, you have to live on something.

Anyone who has an eye on the market is not a writer but a whore.

That's such a stupid thing to say. Anyone who isn't trying to communicate to others when they write, isn't a writer but a solipsist. And to communicate with people you need channels of communication, and there aren't that many which don't depend at least partly on market economics; it may not be a matter of selling your artistic soul to write celebrity biogs, but the global capitalist market needs to work, if you need it to provide you with free blogging space to post your incredibly cool and anti-capitalist poetry.

In other words, it's much, much more complicated than that. A writer who isn't trying to communicate something to someone isn't a writer, s/he's a solipsist. And people won't listen unless a) you can find them and b) they can be persuaded that what you're trying to say is something they want to give ear to - to buy, in a metaphorical sense. And a group of people who you need to find, and need to persuade to buy, sounds awfully like the definition of a market to me...

True, at one end of the spectrum are journeyman writers who'll write anything that sells. At the other is the visionary who won't change a word, even if there aren't more than five people in the world who understand it. Which is fine, as long as s/he accepts that a world who doesn't want his words doesn't owe him a living. Most of us are somewhere in between: we do have a strong idea of what our work is, and what we want it to be, but we also accept that we many need some advice about what's coming across and what isn't. There are lots of things I want to say in my fiction, and they need a carrier signal: I won't change what I'm trying to say, but I'm very willing to be told that the signal's not strong enough, or it breaks up halfway through.

Emma

The thing is, writing for the market implies you are writing to a formula.

I read an interview with Mills & Boon's only male author this week. His answer to the question of writing to a formula was:

okay, Shakespearian Sonnets are formulaic, write one of them.

In other words, regardless of whether you are writing to a formula or not, you've still got to be a bloody good writer to pull it off.

x

I've a lot of sympathy with the Mills & Boon bloke, but I do think there's a difference between a form - a sonnet, a novel, a classical symphony - which is about structure, and a formula, which as commonly used is much more about the ingredients within the work. There's no denying that form can be incredibly liberating, but as it narrows towards a formula I think it gets harder and harder to grow real originality within in.

As someone who's often said to write 'crossover' - i.e. across the often-perceived divide between two different markets (or, arguably, across three divides between six different markets) - I'm all for not writing to a formula. But when my editor says, 'I think we need a different opening, to clue readers into what kind of a novel this is,' I listen. Interestingly, that little prologue has turned out to be many people's favourite bit of the book, and it was certainly one I enjoyed writing - for all of the 20 minutes it took me.

Emma

I do find this sort of stuff very annoying...and I can't understand the use of the word 'market' as if it were dirty and somehow debasing a writer.
The market is just another word for the audience or readership, ya know those good folks who are taking the trouble to read our work. We disrespect them at our peril.
If they just dont get what we are trying to do then it may be that we are just too clever, ahead of our time, groundbreaking etc or it might just mean we're not communicating well enough. My money's on the latter.
HB x

Nothing wrong with being a whore, of course – just don’t try to make out you’re a writer.

I agree with you Emma, what a complete load of self-justifying crap.
I agree Helen, the reader is paramount. If you want to call yourself an author, rather than simply a writer, you have to write for a readership (other than ones own), and make allowances for that readership's expecations (ie, be prepared to make the required changes in the mss), otherwise don't bother coming out of the garret and showing anyone your stuff.


- NaomiM

<Added>

sorry, that sounds a bit brusque. feeling a little lightheaded having just completed a self-assessment tax form online, and come back from the kitchen having poured myself a plate of cornflakes.

Anyone who has an eye on the market is not a writer but a whore.

I personally think it's possible to be both. I also find this statement crushingly pretensious. You might as well say that anyone on earth who needs to work in order to live is a hooker. It's ridiculous.

JB

This man is a critic, for goodness' sake - what the 'eck does that make him???
Susiex

I should imagine he's the kind who wants to keep his fiction 'pure', and separates it completely from the other things we do to pay the rent.

Having said you can't ignore the market because the other name for a market is readers you want to talk to, I don't actually think about it at all when I'm writing - that way madness lies, as far as I'm concerned. I can count on the fingers on half a hand the times I've made a big change because my editor suggested it. Fundamentally, I write what I write, because writing's what I'm good at, and leave worrying about the market to people who are good at worrying about the market.

Emma

This is the nub of the matter, I think, and one that my agent opened my eyes to last year. Yes, by all means, freely express your artistic self - but if you do so with no regard for current trends in the genre you're writing in (some of which never appear to go out of fashion), then don't expect to earn any money from your art. Personally, I don't think turning one's talent into a key that may save one from a life of mundane drudgery and half-hearted ambitions is whoredom at all. Actually, I think it's heroic - one of the bravest and most challenging things a human being can do : turning dreams into reality.

In fact, I think the above is the absolute modern definition of artistic integrity. By choosing that road, you are already making your life ten times harder, preparing to face a host of rejections, potential scorn and possible failure. And all in the name of human endevour, the will to aspire and to inspire, and if I must prostitute myself for that dream, so be it. I am not ashamed. I am aware of the path I have chosen and I am awake in my soul. Millions aren't.

JB

I love Geoff Dyer. He has a life and his body of writing reflects this. I'm a whore. Not half as clever as he is. I'd love to be able to write like him but I can't so do what I can.

Whore.

No need to get personal, Roger!