People don't understand how hard it is to get recognized, how hard it is to get people to read your books. How hard it is to get people to even to understand what they're reading when they're talking to you about their books.
When I write a poem, I do not have to worry about using a higher Urdu vocabulary because I know the reader knows Urdu well.
He who knoweth the reader, doeth nothing more for the reader. Another century of readers - and spirit itself will stink.
Too many writers of fiction don't give the reader enough credit.
Every so often I find some poems that are too good for the readers of The Atlantic because they are a little too involved with the nature of poetry, as such.
Whenever I write, I'm always thinking of the reader.
The rules of grammar exist in large part to permit readers and writers to operate from a shared set of expectations.
One of the most famous lines in contemporary Russian poetry is "Erica makes four copies and that's enough." That's the ethos we're aiming for. This is not to say I don't want lots of people to read my book, I do. I especially want people to read it who will feel better, and safer, or at least understood.
I think of myself as writing for one person, that one perfect reader who understands and loves.
If the reader doesn't understand what you're saying, you're talking to yourself.
You say what you have to say. But you have to learn to say it in such a way that the reader can see what you mean.
I can't control what a reader takes from a story.
I never want to dumb it down. If there's any simplification, it's just a simplification to make sure that the reader understands the point that the character is trying to make.
Novelisation doesn't imply the truth. Readers are sophisticated enough to know that.
Multitudes of words are neither an argument of clear ideas in the writer, nor a proper means of conveying clear notions to the reader.
It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else.
What reader wants to be told what attitude to strike?
I think it's one of the Times' problems that they haven't made it clear to readers what various formats mean.
I sometimes feel that my goal as a novelist would be to write a novel in which the language was so transparent that the reader would forget that language was the medium of understanding. Of course that's not possible, but it's some sort of idealized goal.
My writing model is my mother, who is a writer as well. She always valued clarity and simplicity above all else. If someone doesn't understand what you're writing, then everything else you do is superfluous. Irrelevant. If any thoughtful, curious reader finds what I do impenetrable, I've failed.
In real life, people are constantly saying one thing and doing another, but if you write your characters that way, the story becomes too hard to follow.
If I use the word 'khichdi' in my novel, I don't have to get into the trouble of explaining that it is a dish of rice and lentils. My Indian readers know it.
If I've vividly laid out the narrative, the reader will come to his own conclusions.
We should not write so that it is possible for [the reader] to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus
Narratives have the same power, I think. Some readers of my novels ask me, "Why do you understand me?". That's a huge pleasure of mine because it means that readers and I can make our narratives relative.
