Writing and Audience | Forging The Path to Open Interpretation by Freeing the Audience with Michelle Hart

This series aims to raise questions on the ways in which an audience can influence the thoughts and behaviors of a writer. The reader is so much more than the person in line at the bookstore or a pair of eyes staring into a screen; the reader is the writer’s liaison to the purpose of their writing, because the writer is catering to the reader as soon as pen hits paper. This long-forged relationship goes much deeper than what is written on the page…

This installment features a writer who has just published her debut novel, We Do What We Do In The Dark, and the ways in which the book reflects her perception of audience. This work is a coming-of-age narrative that follows college freshman Mallory Green as she pursues an affair with an unnamed older woman while navigating the grief of losing her mother. 

Aissatou Ndiour: You mentioned in a previous interview that a very early draft of a chapter within your book was conceived as part of a creative writing course that you took here at Hofstra. How did your perception of audience change as your story was developed into a full-fledged book?

Michelle Hart: It’s funny, thinking back I probably wrote very early prototypes of chapters within this book with the intention of impressing my professors. It’s reflected in the main character Mallory’s desire of impressing “the woman” character who is a professor at the college that Mallory attends. As the idea grew from something to be presented to a class into a much bigger story, it started including more of my life experiences and became a piece of writing that could stand for itself. I wasn’t looking for that kind of approval anymore in the way that Mallory was.

AN: What was the best piece of advice that you received while workshopping this book?

MH: The best advice I ever received was actually given to “the woman” character as a line of dialogue. A professor in a writing workshop that I participated in during my MFA program told me to understand this: a reader will look for any reason to put your book down. You have to keep them engaged and write in a way that persuades them to finish the book. They could be doing so many other things besides reading at that moment, and they’re probably looking for a reason to get up and move onto something else if you don’t have their full attention. It’s a piece of advice that hasn’t left my mind since. 

AN: What do you want readers to take away from your story after reading it?

MH: Actually, I really don’t want readers to take away anything specifically. As a reader, I love it when writers leave things open for me to think about so that I can create my own relationship with what they’ve written. Reading is about the personal connection that you can find to the story and what you make of it. Everyone is going to read with a different perspective, so each person should have the opportunity to find that for themselves. I can say what the book is about and what it “means” to me, but that would take the chance away from readers to find that connection. Now that the book has moved away from me, it’s up to readers to interpret it for themselves and come to their own conclusion.