The reader doesn't owe me anything.

I’ve been seeing opinions in the social medias lately from certain writers that I find a little puzzling and entitled. To wit, the idea that readers owe the writer something, that reading is a sort of eating of one’s vegetables and a thing the reader should do not because it is fun or edifying or stretches their brain in interesting ways, but for the writer’s benefit. And I really do wonder where this meme comes from.

The thing about commercial art forms (and don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against commercial art, and neither did William Shakespeare or Charles Dickens, which tells you how good and enduring commercial art can be) is that they need to reach an audience. And that audience has other things they want to spend their money on too, so your book had better be (depending on price point) at least as satisfying as a latter, or a six-pack of beer, or even few hours of a favorite video game.

Editors and agents don’t want you to do things like “establish stakes” and “increase tension” up front because they’re terrible gatekeepers out to destroy your creative process. They want you to do those things so that readers who pick up your book and flip to the first page (either physically or virtually) will be hooked, drawn in, and want to keep reading.