Author Accountability

The other night my husband and I were watching an old re-run episode of How I Met Your Mother, and it reminded me of a discussion my friends and I had following the show's finale. For those who didn't watch the series or it's conclusion, the CBS comedy went out with a controversial ending that split their fan base between those who found it fitting, and those who thought it was THE WORST THING EVER. (In case you couldn't guess, I'm one of the latter.)

[To be clear, this post really isn't about a TV series. It's about author accountability and what that means. And it'll be a little long-winded.]

You see, when my friend Andy and I were discussing the HIMYM final (read "discussing" as a euphemism for heatedly debating), he asked me if I thought the show's creators should be held accountable to the audience they both thrilled and pissed off. As one of the "pissed off", my immediate thought was . . . of course! Of course they should cater to my every whim. And if there are other fans that disagree with me, too bad.

But you can see how this idea of accountability is both fascinating and debatable. The assumption is that authors are held accountable to either A) their artistic vision, or B) their audience. And sometimes they simply don't agree.

Let's take a look at the Divergent novels for example. This series spent a great deal of time in the limelight last year due to the release of the first movie adaptation and the final book of the trilogy, Allegiant. [SPOILERS ahead] I'll admit that I never read Allegiant, but it would be hard to miss the uproar that followed it's release. Audiences were outraged when the series' protagonist was killed off, so much so that author Veronica Roth spoke out defending her choices.

In some ways I understand her decision. I too have become disillusioned with the YA market spitting out a surfeit of teen love stories set against post-apocalyptic or "dystopian" backgrounds. Inevitably both partners make it through war and turmoil with nary a scratch, only to be reunited with their "true love" and live happily ever after. This is neither realistic, nor original. So I can't really blame Roth for taking a more George R. R. Martin-esque approach and bumping off at least one of the lovebirds.

On the other hand, she's chosen to write for a mass market that doesn't really want reality or, some might argue, originality. They want the war and devastation, followed by the predictable happy ending. So it's not shocking that her audience took exception to her more maudlin conclusion. So the question remains, should Roth have been accountable to the audience that stuck with her through three novels, or herself?

[More SPOILERS ahead] Last February, seven years after the release of the final chapter in the Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling made the somewhat shocking statement that she shouldn't have written Ron and Hermione ending up together; that this decision was a reflection of her own wish fulfillment rather than remaining faithful to the characters' development. I have to say, I found this statement quite distressing. Not because I don't understand a writer's desire to hold onto one of their "little darlings" as they say -- that's a struggle I am quite familiar with. But rather because I've read the novels countless times, listened to the audio books so often I wore out my discs, and I simply can't imagine a world in which Ron and Hermione didn't end up together. I could say the same of Harry and Ginny (for those who might argue a Harry/Hermione match-up). She spent seven books setting up the future depicted in the series' epilogue, and to write it otherwise would have felt incohesive. In the case of Harry Potter, I'm thankful Rowling followed through on her own wish fulfillment. I'd bet the majority of her audience, like me, shared that same wish. And hey, who's to says an author can't be considered among the audience of their own work? Write first for yourself they always say. 

In this case, I'd argue that J. K. Rowling remains accountable to her audience rather than her own artistic vision (in which a more "realistic" Ron and Hermione don't wind up together). How I Met Your Mother, on the other hand, suffers in from the writers' refusal to stray from the ending they scripted back in season one. Sure, if the show had ended earlier it might have made sense. But once the audience was finally introduced to the mother character and had the chance to fall in love with her, the original ending no longer fit with the arch of the show. In other words, this is a situation in which the "author" might have been better off listening to audience opinion rather than chaining themselves to their outdated artistic vision. In my humble opinion.

So one has to wonder then what's the better choice? Artistic vision, or audience approval? It's a complicated issue, and one which lack a definitive answer. In the end I believe that authors should ultimately stay true to the work itself. Ron and Hermione end up together not because audiences prefer it that way, but because the relationship built over the seven novels leads them there. Ted and Robin should go their separate ways because after ten seasons of trial and error, they realize they still want different things and found love with other people. And as for Allegiant, well, who knows. I probably won't get around to reading that one. 

As for my own work, I'll do my best to remain flexible with my artistic vision and follow the story where it leads me. 

A Gothic Weekend

October is one of my favorite months, bringing with it an interest in the fantastic and paranormal. Every year around this time I always turn to of some of my favorite Gothic pieces of literature, enjoying their focus on the supernatural. Edgar Allen Poe often reigns forefront in my wind with his The Pit and the Pendulum, The Black Cat, and legendary The Raven. And of course I always revisit Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

However, arguably the best pieces of Gothic literature all derive their origins from the same weekend nearly two centuries ago. In the summer of 1816, George Gordon Byron, better known as the famous Lord Byron, rented the Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva, Switzerland. There he played host to several guest, including his personal physician John William Polidori, poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley's future wife Mary Godwin (aka. Mary Shelley), and her stepsister Claire Clairmont. 

Bored and closeted inside due to near incessant rain, the group spent their time reading horror stories and discussing the possibility of corpse reanimation. They decided to have a contest in which they would write their own ghost stories to entertain one another. Inspired by a dream, the eighteen year-old Mary Shelley wrote a short story that would later be fleshed into Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, one of the greatest examples of Gothic fiction of all time and a time-honored piece of classic literature.

For his own contest submission Lord Byron wrote a short, uncompleted piece which was vampiric in nature. Though it was quickly abandoned, this piece would later inspire John Polidori’s The Vampyre, a novel with an obscure history. Unfortunately, when published in the New Monthly Magazine in 1819 the piece was accredited to Lord Byron rather than the unknown Polidori. Despite the fact that Byron wrote of his personal dislike for vampires and published his original “Fragment of a Novel” in an attempt to clear up the misunderstanding, the tale remains strongly connected with him, an association made stronger by the fact that the main character, Lord Ruthven, resembles the Lord Byron himself. Despite its hazy origins and initial lack of recognition, The Vampyre goes down as the first British vampire novel and one of the progenitors of vampire literature, eventually inspiring Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

It continues to amaze me that one dreary weekend in 1816 would found two such important pieces of Gothic literature, paving the way for an explosion of writings and interest in the supernatural genre. To this day Frankenstein’s monster and the night-roaming vampires inspire constant fascination and allure.