please please me

The relationship between a writer and his readers can sometimes be  pretty uneasy.

Take this scene from a previous post: `He served with the (British `Redcoat’) army in India and America,  and was half-blinded at Saratoga when a Revolutionary musket ball passed across his face. He fell to his knees and blindly fired his musket into the knee cap of a passing Revolutionary, crippling him forever.’
This randomness, unplannedness, chaos, inefficiency, might not be what some people are looking for in a story. Neither the Redcoat or the Revolutionary do what we might expect them to do, what we might prefer them to do.
Depending on their attitude towards the Revolutionary war and human suffering - on how callous they are, they might think: `a musket ball passed across his face? Why didn’t the Revolutionary that fired the musket aim it properly? He blindly fired his musket? Why didn’t he just drop it? A passing Revolutionary? Why was he just passing? Why didn’t he stop to make sure that the Redcoat was dead?’
It could easily be re-written to satisfy these expectations, preferences. This decision depends on what kind of person the writer is, whether he’s the kind who believes he should try to satisfy his readers’ expectations and preferences.
Another way of looking at it is, anyone that did have the above expectations and preferences would be unrealistic and unreasonable. Why? Because in real life people really do have unexpected reflex actions (the Redcoat involuntarily firing the musket), people really are sometimes inefficient(the passing Revolutionary not checking the Redcoat.)
Let’s consider this idea: if the scene were re-written it would be in order to satisfy the readers’ unrealistic and unreasonable expectations. Ouch. That is so harsh. It’s a horrible thing to say; readers are always right, aren’t they?
You don’t think so? Ok, consider this: it doesn’t matter whether they are right or wrong, they have the power to judge a scene like this, and if they judge it to be unsatisfying that is the final decision, there’s no appeal process.
In view of this, let’s consider a compromise. Let’s consider interjecting a chaotic scene like this somewhere in a story but having an orderly conclusion. This way, everyone is happy; the writer gets his fix of chaos and the reader gets his fix of order.