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This week: Choose Your Audience Edited by: Satuawany  
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There are so many things out there urging a writer to "know your audience." There's a lot of general advice about it, but why is it so important? We'll try to get you on the road to answering that for yourself, and for each story. Hopefully, I can get you to look at "knowing your audience" in a different way. I'm the Fantasy newsletter editor who brought you "Audience Intrusion" , which was all about forgetting the audience during rough-draft writing. Today, I get to be your guest For Authors newsletter editor.
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Some people can up and think, "I'm going to write a story that people who are tired of sappy, romantic vampires will love!" And then they go do it.
People like me can have that thought, run off to do it, and get barely through the opening before we realize the story we should write from there.
When you get too caught up in your target audience, you might lose a potentially more original story. The audience for the non-sappy, non-romantic vampires is out there. The problem is, most of them are tired of vampires, period. The other problem is that there are quite a few other writers out there who had the same thought, because they saw that audience existed.
No matter if you're the kind of writer who comes up with your audience before you start, figure it out as you go along, or have to look back at a finished rough draft to decide (and revise accordingly), eventually you have to think about who your audience will be.
You have to decide what audience you want, and choose it. This is very important on a site like this, because it will help you decipher and use peer reviews.
For example, say you're writing a romance story, but you don't want explicit sex scenes. If you know you want an audience who's looking for romance without the erotica, then you can steer past the reviews that call for more detailed love scenes.
You cannot, however, outright ignore comments like that. If you're getting a lot of them, you may need to take another look at your writing. What kind of sexual tension did you build up with the romantic tension? Does it promise a reader there will be an explicit sex scene?
The same goes for all genres. If a story gets a lot of reviews asking, "Where's the action?" see if your writing hints at there being action. If your characters are constantly on the verge of fighting, or training to be fighters, you may be making promises of action to come.
If that's the case, you can still choose. Do you tone down those promises, make it clear it's not an action flick of a story---or do you keep them and add in some action? Which audience do you want?
Once you've chosen your audience, the next step is to work on seeing if you can broaden it. Say I've written a story I hope appeals to 1.) twenty-somethings who haven't really started out in "life," 2.) who would love the adventure of waking up in an alternate dimension, and 3.) who think fart jokes are hilarious.
You broaden the first by making the main character sympathetic to those who have gotten their lives together. Whiners don't make good main characters in any case, but neither do brown-nosers. That's why I'm not saying the character should go on in a "Oh, woe is my life," way, but they could show some respect for those just outside their circle. Some respect---not groveling or continual obeisance.
You broaden the second dynamic by having a character who's scared to death when the supernatural happens, obstinate, or completely disbelieving. If that doesn't fit your main character, maybe it's time to add or adjust a secondary character.
The third dynamic's the easiest to broaden---don't overdo the fart jokes and maybe throw in a character we can sympathize with who hates them.
Yes, of course, there are other ways broaden your audience. These are just some examples, some ideas. How would you do it?
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From other ideas about knowing your audience, to writers who have a solid idea of theirs, to ideas about audiences in general---these made me think.
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A short article on this important aspect of writing.(2nd draft)
#1024986 by Ruth  |
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Comments submitted to my previous guest spot here, "Changing Roles" , in November of last year.
Fyn  writes:
GREAT newsletter!! Good ideas that DO transpose well to writing and I find it an extremely useful one! Sometimes I actually find myself mentally switching who says what in some given situation and it does allow for a broader expansion of ideas as the puppet master pulling the strings behind the scene so to speak. I hope you guest edit more, or perhaps, take on a newsletter or two!
Thanks, Fyn! And I like that switching idea, as well. It's especially cool when you find out the different ways another character would get some other character's idea across.
Zeke wrties:
What you suggest is an amazing idea. I will certainly try it. Thank you.
You're welcome and I hope it works well for you!
BIG BAD WOLF is Howling  writes:
Always something.
You got that right.
THANKFUL SONALI Library Class!  writes:
Cool idea, thanks for sharing this!
It was my pleasure, and thank you!
JACE  writes:
Great newsletter, Satuawany . My wife, an accomplished actress and playright, once cast a young male high school student in the role of an elderly busy-body woman. He apparently displayed some characteristics she desired while reading for another part. He accepted and stole the show. That's where I learned about thinking outside the box. 
That's awesome! It's amazing how much I use what I learned from theatre to help me in my writing. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one. 
atwhatcost writes:
I've been writing about the same characters on and off again for 10 years. I'm at the point where I've gone from their blog to their first novel, and much has changed with their circumstances, but they're still the same characters. With that, your idea intrigues me. I'll have to write a short story to see if I'm showing who they are properly in the story. Thanks.
Sometimes, the ones we've worked with the longest benefit the most from exercises like this. It gives them the chance to surprise us, even, and that's definitely something you can use in-story. I hope it goes well for you!
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For Authors: March 28, 2012 Issue [#4959]
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