Everyday Canvas

The Impulse to Write regardless of Reader Expectations

"My story was a complete success. The audience was a failure." ~ Ashleigh Brilliant
Prompt: When you sit down to blog or write a short story do you consider what the audience expectations are? How important are each word, sentence when it comes to your target audience? If not, who are you writing for?

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I am with Ashleigh on that. I write because I want to, and I write first and foremost for me. Selfish, aren't I!

With my blog, having people read what I write and respond to it and that we exchange ideas is a big plus and an encouragement for me to write every day.

With poetry and short stories, as much as I appreciate reader reaction, I wouldn’t change a thing as to the way I ended a story or put my feelings to words just because someone else likes happy endings or another one likes formal poetry or then another one has a set of beliefs on how a certain character should have behaved because what he did is against the reader’s religion or political position. For the same reason, when I review other people’s work, I don’t question their plots or plot points, except I encourage them to show good reasons for character actions and inject a certain fluency into their storytelling.

On the other hand, audience expectations do matter, if I am writing for an audience; even then, each audience differs, and each member within an audience has varied tastes and expectations. In this area, if I were to write for strict romance-novel readers, I wouldn’t push heavy philosophical concepts on them or end my stories by separating the lovers. Yet, if I were to write for the literary genre readers, I’d focus more on the characters’ psychology and the depth of the plot, and I wouldn’t worry about a dreary ending as it may be much better received than in any other genre.

Since I am writing first for myself and regardless of genre, I appreciate any reader input, but what I write is what I write. I may change a thing or two if I agree with the reader’s comments, after seriously weighing them, but usually my plot is mine, and I won’t change a poem either, if the reader wants to inject a different meaning into it.

By the way, this prompt came up right at the time of the night when I was looking into Stephen King’s 22 points of writing. I am putting them here, in case my blogger friends may find them interesting.


1. Stop watching television. Instead, read as much as possible.

2. Prepare for more failure and criticism than you think you can deal with.

3. Don't waste time trying to please people.

4. Write primarily for yourself.

5. Tackle the things that are hardest to write.

6. When writing, disconnect from the rest of the world.

7. Don't be pretentious. (with overly fancy vocabulary and such)

8. Avoid adverbs and long paragraphs.

9. Don't get overly caught up in grammar

10. Master the art of description. (“ You need to describe things in a way that will cause your reader to prickle with recognition,")

11. Don't give too much background information. (In other words, don’t let research or your vast knowledge on a subject overshadow the story.)

12. Tell stories about what people actually do. ("Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do — to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street.")

13. Take risks; don't play it safe. (“First and foremost, stop using the passive voice. It's the biggest indicator of fear. I'm convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing,”)

14. Realize that you don't need drugs to be a good writer.

15. Don't try to steal someone else's voice. ("You can't aim a book like a cruise missile. When you try to mimic another writer's style for any reason other than practice, you'll produce nothing but pale imitations."

16. Understand that writing is a form of telepathy.(“ Your job isn't to write words on the page, but rather to transfer the ideas inside your head into the heads of your readers.”)

17. Take your writing seriously. (Your story should strike a nerve in you.)

18. Write every single day.

19. Finish your first draft in three months.

20. When you're finished writing, take a long step back. ( In other words, “recuperate” then revise)

21. Have the guts to cut.

22. Stay married, be healthy, and live a good life. ("The combination of a healthy body and a stable relationship with a self-reliant woman who takes zero shit from me or anyone else has made the continuity of my working life possible It's important to have a strong balance in your life, so writing doesn't consume all of it.”)