Great Writing Is a Social Interaction with the Reader
“Writing prose involves for the writer an integrations of self, a deliberate act of balancing its two component parts. It represents an act of socialization, and it is by repeated acts of such socialization that we become sociable beings, that we grow up. Thus the act of writing models the presentation of self in society; prose reality rehearse us for social reality. It is not a question of a preexistent self making its message known to a preexistent society. It is not, initially, a question of message at all. Writing clarifies, strengthens, and energizes the self, renders individuality rich, full, and social…Only by taking the position of the reader toward one’s own prose, putting a reader’s pressure on it, can the self be made to grow into full sociability. Writing should enhance and expand the self, allow it to try out new possibilities, tentative selves.” (p. 98)