I think, just as with authors, every reader has their own style and reason for reading. I read to understand and become part of a world that's not my own through each and every story, and expand my own writing techniques and character development. It's important to me to take in as many details from the text as I can, to formulate a mental image of what is happening and understanding all events that occur. On the other hand, I believe there are readers who read simply for the sake of reading. They don't examine the text or story, rather, they get lost in it. It could be a method of taking their mind off of the present, not necessarily to read a good or bad story or to "step into the shoes of the characters". Others may simply see reading as a tool to better themselves. I think the reason could be just about anything you could imagine, including a lack of reading comprehension as stated, although I don't really think its fair to assume the latter. On a similar note, if readers can have different opinions and relationships to the characters they read about, then certainly they should be able to read and absorb the story in different ways. EDIT: And one more thing! You can only control how your characters feel in a situation you present. Any feelings your readers are derivative of their impressions on the story. It's the same with how your readers will recall certain events in the story, but not others.
For whatever reason, my opinion regarding this is a really, really unpopular opinion on this site. I put it down to the same tendency I point out in other threads: that there are some writers don't like to be held to any objective standard, because that would require them to develop skills that they may not have. A standard would imply the potential for them to be lacking, which is something their high school English teachers would have balked at saying. I always wanted to vomit every time a teacher said, "Well, how do you feel about the text? There is no wrong answer." If you write a sad scene and your reader is gleeful and laughing at it, then you have failed. Certainly, one at least intends to entertain the reader; if the reader is bored, you have failed. Surely that can't be too controversial. But if neither of those examples help, think of a storyteller. Think of a bard or troubadour performing before an audience. His words are meant to elicit laughter or tears or to make the heart race, and he knows whether he has done those things by the way his audience responds. As a writer, you have exactly the same job, except that you don't get the advantage of being able to watch and listen to your audience as you spin your tale. A writer's objective is control of effect. Is that ever going to be easy? No. Is it optional? Also no. You must endeavor to make the reader feel what you want them to feel. @MythMachine, my frustration (which I think is evident above in spite of my intentions to the contrary) is not directed at you. I think my rant here is basically just waiting to be written into an essay after I've chewed on it a little longer. You just mentioned one of my pet peeves; that's all.
I can only speak of what I find myself doing as a reader. After opening a book the first few sentences I read are heavily concentrated upon because I'm still getting comfortable. After that, however I start to focus less on the words and more on the image in my head. Each new word serves to continue the movie that I have playing. Which means that I only catch enough description to keep the movie playing fluidly. This does mean that I don't end up reading some of the finer details that the author put a lot of work into writing. This is something I try to catch on as a reader these days to make sure I get the full picture, I don't think it has to do with bad writing. That is different from when a piece is actually dull and boring. If something is boring my brain naturally switches off. I will read the words but it won't process at all. If I go back to re-read it whilst concentrating then it looks like a completely new paragraph to me.
I have to take some mild issue with you, Archer. The fact is, each of us brings our own world of experience to reading (and to writing). The author can only frame things with the words that best describe the author's conscious intention, but that does not mean the same words will mean the same thing to any reader, careful or casual. Generally, probably. But hardly to the point where the author can definitely control every nuance. I believe that an author should be expressing his or her view of the human experience, imbuing such meaning as he or she finds and wants to convey, with the best words available to the author, but the author should also respect the autonomy of readers as other partakers of the human experience, from their own perspectives. And I don't know about you, but a lot of things I write become clear to me as I write them, and I draw out meanings I didn't know were there. And more than once I've gotten feedback, positive feedback or negative, about a message or meaning that I never suspected even after I wrote it. But I go back and see it.
@GrahamLewis, I doubt your disagreement is as strong as it may seem. The way it works is that the author supplies one part of a story and the reader must the other, but that does not absolve the author from his responsibility to be in control of what the reader thinks and feels. In actual fact, you are not arguing against my position, but against a straw man (which I do not claim you have deliberately constructed, but which results instead from the defensive impulse I outlined in the beginning of my last post). I do not say that every nuance of the reader's feeling must be controlled. Indeed, this entire thread has discussed the very loose interpretation that readers usually have of an author's work: they get the general idea, but they will very often have little more than that. And yet none of that absolves the author of his responsibilities. My earlier postings (not the last one above) in this thread discuss the necessity to write in such a way that even a cursory reading of the text will provide the reader with what is needed to elicit the desired effect. If the author discharges all responsibilities in that regard and the reader still doesn't get it because, as you mentioned and as I firmly believe myself, the reader simply brought the wrong thing to the table when it came time for him to provide his half, my assertion would be that the reader simply is not a part of the intended audience for the piece. But the selection of one's audience, too, is a part of the author's responsibility. My critiques in the workshop these days begin with the following: Ok, so, the rules: I provide my unfiltered responses to the text, and you decide what you do with them. Just judge your work based on whether my response is what you want it to be--and whether or not you think you want me as a member of your audience. I'll give you my overall reaction and general thoughts, and then I'll get down into a list of notes I made while reading. I have highlighted the important bit. To sum up, the impact of a work on the author's intended audience is the author's responsibility. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes the reader is disingenuous (although I would argue that this is rare and usually results from a combination of factors not related to the work itself but rather to the reader's relationship with the author and to the environment in which the reading is performed). Nonetheless, while I agree substantively with everything you said, I refuse to believe that an author can imbue a reader with a sense of dread and yet feel he has succeeded when what he intended to instill was a feeling of joy.
One last thought in response to @GrahamLewis above: Most of what I do in my workshop here in my hometown, and what I attempt to do here on the forum, is to compare my intent with the reader's interpretation. If they don't match, I ask myself why, and I further ask myself whether or not their alternate interpretation is harmful. Usually, it's really not, in which case there's nothing I need to do to change that interpretation. Perhaps this is what you mean when you say that the reader's autonomy must be respected. Of course, there are times when I have just not done my job, and there are times when I have mostly discharged my duty but an odd corner case--the result of the reader's own differing experiences--slips through the cracks. An excellent example of this would be a comment I received on a recent workshop piece here. A reader, upon seeing a wolf described as smelling like "dung," pointed out that wolves are not likely to smell like dog crap. The reason for the misunderstanding was that they had interpreted the following phrase differently from what I intended, and I will allow that it can be read ambiguously: "smelled like wolf fur and dung." The reader took "wolf" as an adjective modifying both "fur" and "dung." In that case, my response was to reverse the positions of the two nouns: "smelled like dung and wolf fur."
One brief "rebuttal." I have never said or would maintain that there is no objective standard for writers. But I don't think the measure is the degree of "control" the writer exerts over the reader. I place the standard on clear writing, enticing writing, and careful word choice and placement, plus of course solid grammar. If the writer has done those well, he or she has written well, and will likely convey and create the intended reading Of course a writer should keep the intended audience in mind, which affects the word choice and theme, and all. But some readers may react differently to a scene than the writer intended, and that does not necessarily mean failure by the writer. It could, it can, and sometimes it no doubt does, but it can still happen to good writers who have done their job, as objectively measured as above. This also applies if all you are saying that someone who writes a dramatic scene so poorly that people laugh at it. Or an intended humorous scene falls flat. That's just poor writing. I agree with your revision of the sentence above, and understand how helpful it is to have a critique of a draft. But I see that as an error in construction that could mislead the reader (a momentary or perhaps actual ambiguity) as to a particular phrase. An editor would probably catch it. You probably would have caught it in re-reading it. So yes it is an indication of faulty writing, not lack of control over the reader. Did that stop the reader from understanding your intended scene? (on a side note, I don't see what good the change did, unless by "dung" you mean cow or other herbivore manure, in which case perhaps you should say so). Maybe that's what bothers me, this idea of controlling the reader. One can only control what one writes. If a reader likes it for another reason, fine. And the reader may dislike it for a reason you didn't anticipate. Maybe a problem, but not one you can fix if you have done your part. I truly believe that writing should offer the reader the opportunity and motivation to reflect on his or her experience. I don't think we are far apart, really. I think that a good writer will draw the reader in and create a solid basis for communicating what the author intends. But not always, and that's no one's "fault." That's still good writing, albeit with a different reading. Perhaps more significantly, another problem I have with your proposed "objective standard" is that it would be impossible to measure in anything other than a small sample size. Yes, people in a writing group can respond, but how do you know that's a representative sample (plus, those people have the advantage of interacting with you and you with them). If you actually publish something, how can you tell how many readers react to a scene the way you want? IMHO, of course.
You might ask a publisher if they can tell whether or not a writer's work resonates with readers in aggregate. They may well have some kind of number they can point to in answer.
They read what is written, and use their minds to fill the blanks. Excessive detail is just begging to be skimmed.
