A Few Words about Intention

In reviewing our first week of critiquing nonfiction, I have some observations and suggestions:

Seems to me the difference between reading like a reader and reading like a writer has everything to do with the extent to which we take the writer's intentions into account. A reader isn't too worried about what the writer intended, whereas a writer begins her reading experience with just that question in mind -- What's the writer up to here?

Of course, it's interesting and sometimes even helpful to get a reader's perspective.

The trouble is reading is an inherently subjective experience. Tastes vary. Widely. A reader is always reading on his own terms. From his own perspective. With his own blind-spots and personal experiences close to the surface. The fundamental question for a reader is this: Do I like this or do I not like it?

We'd all like to be liked. To be recognized as the geniuses we are. Unfortunately, with something as subjective as "art," 100% approval (or anything like it) is impossible.

So -- in a critique setting -- whether you, as a reader, "approved" is incidental. We can agree that all the things we read will be up some people's alley and not others'. Some people will "get it" (and here I don't mean "get it" as synonymous with "understand" -- I mean it as something akin to "striking a chord") and some won't.

That's why I want us to read, primarily, as writers. I want to focus on four very specific questions:

1. What intentions (preoccupations, concerns, obsessions) does the essay convey?

2. Where, specifically, does the essay convey those intentions most successfully?

3. Where, specifically, could it convey those intentions more successfully?

And finally the real kicker:

4. I think writerly intentions are often overrated. What you think your essay (story, poem...) is about and what it really is about (or should be about) are not always the same thing. So the $64,000 question is this:

Are there potential intentions -- perhaps unintended intentions -- lurking at or near the surface of the essay, and could/should they be exploited more than they are right now?

That's all I'm worried about. And that's the order I want to go in every single time we talk about an essay draft in critique.

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