Anti-Expression-Ism

I was recently reading publisher guidelines (for a particular Development Opportunity) about what they are looking for when it comes to writing. Clear, distinct voice - yes. Strong ideas - of course. And then came across the directive from a particular publisher stating that writing for publication is about communication, not self-expression.

What the?

On the one hand, I get it. They don't want confessional writing, cathartic outpourings, personal journals dressed up as narrative.

But really.

Why so scared of self-expression? When executed along with talent and skill isn't that actually what makes inspiring art, great works of literature, lasting pop songs, poems to move and uplift and provoke?

Communication, good lord, sounds like something we must do effectively to put across our point. Like something in a marketing or business writing manual. It is so even handed, so egalitarian, so bland.

I don't want to 'communicate' with my reader or audience. And I don't want to be 'communicated' with. I want to be moved, angered, exalted, banged over the head, reduced to tears or laughter, twisted into a new way of seeing things, or delivered to a delightful place of reverie and contemplation.

And also.

Blanket statements about what writing for publication is or is not seems like a slippery slope, especially for a publisher presumably on the look out for fresh words, exciting writing, unexpected stories and ways of telling them.

If writing for publication is only about communication, and not self-expression, The Metamorphosis would have been a treatise on identity, Angels in America would have been an account of the spread of HIV/AIDS among the gay population of America in the 1990s, The Bell Jar would have been titled Study of a woman experiencing mental illness.

And the world would be a much poorer, more drab and less beautiful place.

All those in favour of self-expression as a perfectly natural part of the artistic and creative process? Say 'I'!