WRITING FOR STRANGERS

"I write for myself and strangers." Gertrude Stein

"Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can meet on terms of absolute intimacy." Paul Auster

When I write I'm not thinking of my future "audience". I'm creating a world for myself, playing at being god, making people live, love, fight, flee, die. I create the story I want to inhabit for the duration.  Only later do I think of the readers, for the most part strangers, with whom I want to communicate.

It is while writing my second draft that I become aware of my reader's participation. Have I created the details of sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing that will draw them into the reality of each scene? Is the plot moving swiftly enough to keep them engaged, but not too swiftly for them to keep up? Do the characters emerge as individual, unique, sometimes quirky, memorable, yet realistic human beings?

As a child I escaped to other worlds through reading.  I didn't realize for some time that there  was a writer behind the curtain. The worlds simply existed for me, the characters as real to me as my parents and siblings. Later, after I began to understand that certain books appealed to me more than others, I became curious about the writer.Who was this person behind the book? How could she speak to me across the years, the distance, the absolute differences of experiences?  I was drawn into the idea that I, too, could create my own worlds for others to share in. The dialogue begins when the reader opens (or downloads) the first page and steps into the world I've created. WRITE ON!