Trevanian on why we write

Reading Don Winslow's Sartori, a story based on the Nicolai Hel character from the legendary spy novel Shibumi.

I have never been a voracious reader of espionage fiction but there is something so addictive and inspiring about the novels of Trevanian.  His ability to infuse genre with unique language and a rich tapestry of history, themes and ideas was really unmatched.

Very few authors can inspire and entertain at the same time the way Trevanian did. Shibumi was the rare book, like the Stieg Larsen series, that provides the manic, ephemeral excitement of the thriller with a timeless, transcendent quality.

I came across Trevanian's discussion of why he wrote the way he did, skipping from genre to genre and marching to his own drummer throughout his writing career.

It is an eloquent assessment of the forces that drive us to write, the need to keep readers interested but keep ourselves interested as well:

Right from the first I wrote, not for the aesthete, the academic or the intellectual, but for the bright and sensitive person from any walk of life. It has been my job and my pleasure to take the topics, the social and political concerns, and the emotional evocations we associate with higher literature and express them in the idioms and techniques of what we call genre literature: forward-thrusting story, sharp character, crisp dialogue, and an inevitable engine of narrative. (You recognize that your narrative machine is running when moments in the story stop being attached by the word 'and' and begin to be attached by 'then', and the machine is in top gear when they are linked by 'therefore'.) These story elements render the concerns of the pure novel both palatable and easy to assimilate.

I could have made more money if I'd stuck to one genre as most successful writers do. Most readers use books as an escape, and they pretty soon discover their genre-drug of preference. If they find a writer who works well for them, they read his other things, confident that he'll satisfy the itch, and so each time a writer sells a new book, he also sells three or four of his older books. So, sticking to the same genre makes sense financially, but I would be bored by writing the same kind of book again and again. I am as concerned with my book being an excellent example of its genre as I am with the social, philosophical and political messages it carries -- but if I had to choose, I'd save the story elements. I try to drench each novel with enough story and action and crisp dialogue to keep people from throwing the book against the wall when I start to preach at them.

It was more interesting for me to change genres, but it was difficult for my readers to follow me from, say, spy thriller to Edwardian romance, and understandably, some dropped out. However, a gratifyingly large number of readers have followed Trevanian throughout his career. Trevanian fans are an interesting bunch, not genre addicts, obviously, and appreciative of elements of careful craftsmanship and solid story-telling.