My newest column for the Los Angeles Times reflects what was some unconscious gravitation on my part towards non-fiction that looks at contemporary detective fiction, and so it's the first of a two-part series, this time concentrating on the relationship between author and reader and how series characters are viewed by their creators. Here's how the piece opens:
In an essay for the Wall Street Journal last spring, Alexander McCall Smith explains the curious relationship readers have with characters created by other people and the expectations that build up for authors as a result. He describes one encounter with a reader highly critical of a plot turn in one of his Isabel Dalhousie novels, to the point where McCall Smith muses, after the fact, "that was me put in my place. After all, I was merely the author."
The phenomenon McCall Smith described -- best exemplified by the hordes of fans clamoring for any new speck of information on the next "Twilight" novel by Stephenie Meyer or the conclusion to the "Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins -- is what I term narrative investment. The author creates a world whose story and characters ring so true and inspires readers to care a great deal about what happens next that they enter a fugue state mixing reality and fantasy -- with readers' needs placed far ahead of writers' -- especially if said stories are adapted for movies and television, expanding the narrative's reach and cementing the level of investment by potential fans.
Though the larger world of science fiction, fantasy and comics attracts more fans with heavy emotional and wallet-based investments in their chosen genre, crime fiction is hardly immune. Last month's column touched on what authors do when a series threatens to go stale, and some of their choices drive their readership into apoplexy -- especially when a beloved supporting or main player is disposed of. The total amount of time readers spend with a given series character, however, is dwarfed by the years of writing required to set each installment down on paper. And if writers don't always know best about their detective alter-egos, they usually know better because they have access to inside information lurking inside their minds that readers simply do not....
After that I spend more time on Otto Penzler's anthology THE LINE-UP, where 21 of the best and brightest in crime explain their protagonists' origin stories. The quality is very high, and the best pieces are the most essayistic. I also have a funny feeling it'll make a good gift for the holidays, too...
As for Part II - coming next month - it'll be on PD James' TALKING ABOUT DETECTIVE FICTION. More anon.
Yes, I get e-mails from fans who get so involved in Akitada's private life that they object to certain developments and suggest future scenarios. I've always taken this as a compliment. Readers are supposed to identify with characters.
Posted by: I.J.Parker | December 06, 2009 at 10:05 AM