As a writer, I get handed a lot of books by random people. Some of the books are by authors these people admire, some of them are self-written works, some of them are books by friends. I usually appreciate the thought, and generally give the work at least a skim, if not a full read.
In one case, however, the book in question was a self-published work by a friend of the person who gave it to me, and not a very good one at that. The entire thing was heavy-handed social commentary, meant to be funny but also meant to be in-your-face opinionated. Certain details were obviously thrown in to deliberately confuse or mislead the reader, and I could practically hear the author chuckling at me during certain points. When the person who lent it to me asked what I thought, I said, “it was well-written.” He said, “no, seriously, what did you honestly think?”
So I let him have it.
At the end of my explanation of why I really didn’t like it, I said, “It just really seemed like mental masturbation.”
To which my friend replied, “Isn’t all writing basically a form of mental masturbation?”
I could tell he just thought my opinion on the book was funny, and that I was offended for all the reasons the author had intended a reader to be offended, and that I was maybe an intellectual light-weight for not getting the joke. I just let the matter drop.
But here’s my thought on that: No, writing is not mental masturbation.
Certain kinds of writing certainly are meant to be: journaling; that novel someone wrote and never, ever showed to anyone; angsty teenage poetry; or even just poetry that you write for yourself because you like doing it and don’t plan on showing anyone. Let me state clearly here: There is nothing wrong with this kind of writing. If you do this and you like it, by all means, keep it up. Making yourself happy is a positive activity.
Any kind of writing that is meant to be shared is more like making love. If the author is the only one getting off, then they are a selfish douche and will have a hard time finding a partner willing to go through a repeat performance.
Writing anything that is meant to be shared should be a pleasure to both parties. If it’s not to someone’s taste, then fine, whatever, not everyone likes toys during sex. But the author needs to set out to have a good time and help the reader do the same. Or if they want to prove a point, they need to seduce the reader to their way of thinking, not beat them over the head with long words and unbelievable characters. That’s true of writing meant to make a person cry or meant to take them on a daring adventure or writing meant to sweep them off their feet. You have to make it clear from the get-go what it is you’re both getting into so people who may not enjoy this kind of thing can avoid it, and then you have to deliver the goods to the people who signed on. You can maybe dabble a little bit in something that’s on the edge of what you promised, but you have to keep it within everyone’s comfort zone so no one gets freaked out, and you have to make sure you bring it back so no one feels lied to or cheated.
Writing a novel and then putting it out into the world is making a very intimate promise to the people who might read it. You are asking to be allowed to put ideas into their minds. When a person picks up a book and starts reading, they’re giving you permission to get inside their head. An author needs to be respectful of that.
The author has to have fun, too. Who likes being the one who puts all the work into a relationship and gets nothing back? I’m certainly not saying an author has to make it all fun for the reader and get no joy from their own writing. I’m just saying it’s a give and take, a team effort. The author controls what goes into their work, but the reader controls whether it goes into their mind.
So no, not all writing is a form of mental masturbation. The very best writing is the kind where we both get our rocks off.
