It's Authenticity Week! This Week, We're Writing Colours

Every year at around this time, I develop an ungodly craving for oranges and lemons. I don’t know what to tell you. I crave orange juice in the spring, but I want the unadulterated type. It must not be watered down by deflavoured grape juice. It mustn’t have the cells removed. It mustn’t be diluted with water.

The best orange juice contains nothing but oranges.

This isn’t an easy thing to find in a supermarket. Most people want almost-orange juice that’s sugared and watered down, so that’s what you’ll find on the shelf. The only way to acquire real orange juice is to make it yourself.

And I’m lazy. I don’t like making things for myself.

Writing is exactly like oranges. The best literature is precise, sparse, and unadulterated. There should be no sweetening of the subject matter and no “deflavoured” euphemisms. There should be nothing on the page except authenticity.

Most readers don’t read to that level. They’re too lazy. Unadulterated, rhetoric-free writing is easier to digest in vast quantities, so Mills and Boon’s novels sell out faster than high literature. True poetry is more rewarding to read, but to get the reward, you must do the work. You must look at what is shown and work out what it means. You must digest every tiny detail as though it tells its own story because it does. You must question unreliable narrators and interpret carefully chosen imagery.

That’s why Mills and Boon’s books are crap. They’re created for lazy readers who prefer some sugar in their orange juice, but I swear the real thing is better. Nothing beats the stuff that comes off the tree.

Whatever you write, tell the truth, even in fiction. Your work must have the unmistakable smack of authenticity, and that’s a lot harder for a writer to achieve.

Steven King developed a reputation for complaining that his books were never included in literary studies. He insisted that his books sold more, so they were among the greatest ever written.

No.

No, no, no.

Steven King knows how to sugar his juice just the way the wider public likes it. Steven King writes for tired readers who don’t feel like a challenge. I’ve been known to consume some of his early books when I’m lazy, too, but I will never fall in love with them quite as much as I have Crow or Ash Wednesday.

This is the question you should ask of yourself when you’re proofreading your own work: Is it sparse? Is it credible? Does it say the hard things? Does it couch harsh realities in euphemisms?

To make orange juice, you have to cut and squeeze it yourself. It takes work, and so does writing authentically. You must cut, scrape, and squeeze it out of your soul. You can be a Mills and Boon’s writer if you like. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I’m begging you to be more ambitious. Try to achieve greatness. Otherwise what is it for?

This week, I'm going to give you a colour prompt every day. The challenge lies in finding that colour's authenticity for yourself. Don't overthink your interpretation of the prompt. It is what you make it. Just write what feels real. Today's colour is purple.