Letter From the Author

One of the more interesting things one can do to learn about fiction authors is to read something that they wrote addressing their audience, as opposed to being an integral part of their fictional work.

Case in point: This fabulously entertaining "About the Author" written by Isaac Asimov later in his life (the early '80s). (I showed it around to my family today, and even Dad, who doesn't have quite the same sense of humor as the rest of us, cracked a smile.)

Isaac Asimov was born in the Soviet Union to his great surprise. He moved quickly to correct the situation. When his parents emigrated to the United States, Isaac (three years old at the time) stowed away in their baggage. He has been an American citizen since the age of eight.
Brought up in Brooklyn, and educated in its public schools, he eventually found his way to Columbia University and, over the protests of the school administration, managed to annex a series of degrees in chemistry, up to and including a Ph. D. He then infiltrated Boston University and climbed the academic ladder, ignoring all cries of outrage, until he found himself Professor of Biochemistry.
Meanwhile, at the age of nine, he found the love of his life (in the inanimate sense) when he discovered his first science-fiction magazine. By the time he was eleven, he began to write stories, and at eighteen, he actually worked up the nerve to submit one. It was rejected. After four long months of tribulation and suffering, he sold his first story and, thereafter, he never looked back.
In 1941, when he was twenty-one years old, he wrote the classic short story "Nightfall" and his future was assured. Shortly before that he had begun writing his robot stories, and shortly after that he had begun his Foundation series.
What was left except quantity? At the present time, he has published over 260 books, distributed through every major division of the Dewey system of library classification, and shows no signs of slowing up. He remains as youthful, as lively, and as lovable as ever, and grows more handsome with each year. You can be sure that this is so since he has written this little essay himself and his devotion to absolute objectivity is notorious...

(It goes on a bit, but that part's not as relevant.)

Like Stan Lee, Asimov cultivated a certain voice for his essays; where Lee's is excessively pompous and kind of (really) overbearing, Asimov's is self-deprecatingly humorous, with a dash of false hubris. (In other works of his I've read, Asimov notes that he was in fact incredibly abrasive and that the only reason he was able to lead his successful life is because he was smart enough to make money writing. If he'd had to rely on being genial, or so he claimed, he'd have failed. Also note that his second wife seriously didn't like his self-criticism. In what I believe was the same essay, he noted that some character was based on himself; she replied that she thought that fellow was abrasive and obnoxious, to which he replied "Exactly!" She apparently scolded him vigorously over it.) And like Lee, the style is fairly difficult to imitate, though perhaps less in your face noticeable.

Anyway, there's worse than you could do, in developing a relationship with your readers, than creating a personal voice that's somehow aimed at them. Lee and Asimov both enjoyed immense success in their chosen careers, and there's some degree of a lesson in that, I'm sure.

-Signing off.