Give the people what they want

Garrison Keillor writes a weekly column called “The Old Scout” which appears in several newspapers around Minnesota and the country. During the Bush Administration, Keillor often focused on politics but this piece from last week was an amusing look at the act of writing for a popular audience. He argues that books can be very popular with a fast-changing population, so long as you give the people what they want. Maybe it’s not for everyone, but anyone who writes or reads a lot will enjoy this.

But what readers really want is the same as what Shakespeare’s audience wanted — dastardly deeds by dark despicable men, and/or some generous blood-spattering and/or saucy wenches with pert breasts cinched up to display them like fresh fruit on a platter. It isn’t rocket science, people.

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Unfortunately, writers are a gloomy bunch given to whining about the difficulty of getting published, the pain of rejection, the obtuseness of critics, etc. They sit at their laptops and write a few sentences about pale reflections and then check their e-mail and Google themselves. Maybe click onto a Web site where young women display their breasts like ripe fruit. They get busy messing around and don’t have time to write fiction so they write poems instead.

Poems are easy. A haiku is three lines of five, seven and five syllables. You can crank this stuff out with one hand, so people do.