A Rumination for Writers

I read recently, and I think this is true, that the job of writers is to take the reader somewhere they either do not access, or cannot access. In journalism this was absolutely true. Our job, in the best cases, was to break into some world, some subculture, some political group, some organization, and tell the reader how it really worked from the inside.

In the past, writers traveled to distant lands and wrote great tales of what they saw there. I think this kind of British writing influenced me greatly.

But now, when people can travel wherever they want to go, where do readers want to be taken? Do they want to travel into someone else's life (the memoir)? Do they want to travel inside an institution that is basically blocked to everyone, including the media, to get the real, inside scoop (hence the rise in tell-all books from people once they leave an organization. The "This is what it was really like" genre of memoir).

Do they want to go inside a religious cult? Inside Hollywood? Inside a school? Inside a mind? Inside a dysfunctional family?

In this age where a staggering amount (too much?) incredibly personal information is available with a dance on the keyboard that takes you to a blog (like this one!) facebook, or youtube, tell me, dear readers and fellow writers, where is it that you want your storytellers to take you?

Or, is that, since we can now find a way to go anywhere, that we are looking more for a specific kind of a guide to take us there. Are we looking for a certain perspective? A certain voice? Is that the change?

Please drop me a line with your thoughts. I am so curious.