I've told you a million times not to exaggerate
... don't shove things in [the readers'] faces. Let them watch the characters act and interact, and if you've done your job right, they will figure the important stuff out for themselves.It has been pointed out to me that this is an idealization. Not every reader will read closely, or carefully; some readers dislike nuance, and want their stories straight up. Others will skip great passages looking for sex scenes or fight scenes or dialogue. Some read for plot alone. The perfect reader doesn't exist, of course, and that's why some people say you write for yourself alone.
I think it's true that any author can only write to their own understanding of story. What makes a good story for me personally is what I put down on paper in the hope that it will work for a wider audience, but of course it's not going to suite everybody.
For example. I'm not a big fan of Hemingway. For a whole variety of reasons, his stuff just doesn't work for me, and what that means is only this: I'm not the right reader for his work. I'm also not the right reader for Bronte (don't yell. I just have never warmed to The Sisters), for Dan Brown, or for most of the minimalists. I am the right reader for Austen, Dickens, Monro, Morrison, Garrett, Helprin, Kinsale, Crusie, Ivory, and dozens of others. I want to like Virginia Woolf, but I usually fall asleep over her stuff. Her failing? Absolutely not.
As a reader, you walk along the long buffet and pick and choose among the things that appeal to your particular tastes. Because others tell you that James Joyce is nutritious and good for you doesn't mean he'll delight your palate. Because that huge bowl of marshallow fluff streaked with chocolate, gummy bears, and pure sugar comes with a big sign that says no nutritional value doesn't mean that you might not really enjoy a serving.
Can you educate your palate? This is a question that some with answer with a strong affirmative, but I think it's a difficult task. People with truly eclectic tastes are those, I think, who were exposed to a wide range of story types in their childhood. After a certain age, you can force a person to read and analyze Greek tragedies or Proust or John Donne, but I think it's pretty rare for an adult to develop a true new craving. While it's true that there's a landscape larger than the one you see, after a certain age it becomes harder and harder to put on your traveling shoes.
So when I write about 'the reader' I'm writing about 'my ideal reader' -- a theoretical construct, my personal Harvey.