People don’t read anymore— I read that recently in two different books so it has to be true. 😉
Seriously, there is evidence that reading, as a way to be entertained, was a much bigger thing back in the heyday of pulp magazines (1920s and 1930s.)
People, even people who dropped out of school in seventh grade to work full time, bought the many different pulp magazines available at ‘any newsstand’ for a few cents.
By the time I came along, when you wanted to read Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, as my mother did, you had to subscribe to it— which she did in spite of the fact that when the magazine came she often didn’t get to read it until I finished.
People don’t seem to be like that now. In my county, people used to be able to shop for books at the new bookstore in the next county, or else the used bookstore, also in the next county. Now there are no bookstores in the next county, and I don’t know how far I’d have to drive to get to a bookstore. Farther than I can actually get these days.
I have read that a lot of people never pick up another book once they leave school. Which to me is shocking. The only other place to get your stories is from TV and movies which have increasingly lost the ability to appeal to anyone.
Why is there so much non-reading these days? I think a lot of it is because of the schools. Schools have been convinced that the only things worth reading are things that are painful to read— full of grimness and deaths and ‘heroes’ with less of a moral compass than the story’s villains.
I remember one story I had to read in high school, called ‘The Cold Equations.’ The story had two major characters– a space pilot going about his duty, and a girl stowaway on his ship. Being a naive reader, I thought the girl stowaway was more interesting so identified with her. It wasn’t until I re-read the story years later that I realized it was a story about the pilot. All I remember about my initial reading was the shock as I came to realize that the girl stowaway I thought of as the main character was probably about to be killed by being put out the airlock into space.
(Update: the author of The Cold Equations is Tom Godwin.)
Now, this story was not grimdark as we have it today. The pilot tried to work out a way to save the girl, but his mission was to deliver medical supplies to a plague-stricken outpost, and he had limited fuel. Saving the girl would condemn multiple people to death.
But this was a story chosen for a bunch of high school kids to read. We had to, as part of our classwork. It was a painful story, because an innocent character died. I have since wondered if most of the girls in that class had the same shock as I did, from identifying with that doomed character.
Now, this story is not true grimdark. The girl meant no harm, and the pilot had no way to save her, because his mission was to save more than one person and he just didn’t have extra fuel. In a grimdark story, the pilot wouldn’t have had altruistic reasons to kill the girl, and she would have proved to be a villain anyway.
But it was a painful story for high school kids to read anyway. The school authorities must have been convinced that a story with the death of an innocent character was somehow medicinal for us. Instead, it showed us all reading could be painful. Back in those days, deaths of major characters were not a big part of television shows, except for Dark Shadows, where the dead characters came back as vampires or ghosts.
This tendency seems to have gotten worse. Painful reading in schools continues to be the norm, and many schools are ever less responsive to the objection of parents.
Publishing also has gone full grimdark. Instead of fictional heroes that are good guys, we have Dexter, the serial killer who kills other serial killers. I love Dexter and all, but a guy who enjoys cutting other people up while they are still alive has a major-league character flaw.
Traditional publishers seem to think that what people want is fiction without heroes and without a moral compass, but with grim didactic sections about global warming, gender identity, and why ‘white’ people should just die.
Most normal, emotionally healthy people don’t need that kind of grimdark in our lives. We have too much of that in reality. We want to escape into books that will take us on a grand adventure and leave us feeling uplifted instead of hopeless. If the books trad-publishing wants to put out won’t do that, potential readers will look elsewhere.
It is authors of written fiction who have the chance to change this trend. You can’t, from your own home without large sums of money and large numbers of co-creators, make a non-grimdark television series or major motion picture. But you can write a short story or a novel and self-publish it. If you keep on writing, and develop your skills, you can find an audience of people who are still willing to take a chance on a book.
Have you experienced grimdark or painful fiction in your schooling? Have you ever had a hard time finding fiction that bucks this trend, fiction that is actually fun to read?
Here is a link to a short story of mine, Banned Books, Banned Girl.
https://www.wattpad.com/story/269878745?utm_source=android&utm_medium=link&utm_content=share_reading&wp_page=reading&wp_uname=NissaAnnakindt&wp_originator=3%2FHhugZziTPCYp0F89QpLRycKGlstKU7FQhf4dqMFdwTFqU1zpzY6OwL8y97uvtrXyqxIG%2FZMDCB6KEDErnomXKBCgJ4TA%2BEK8Gr6x5bIWNZt9HbALaY8IbM96EiD35N
My Antimatter Life 