Karla Oceanak
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Who do YOU write for? 

4/10/2013

4 Comments

 
Picture
In my writers' group, we sometimes talk about audience. As in, "Who are you writing this piece for?"

Often, writers don't know. They're writing what they want to say. And they're hoping that if they say it well enough, an editor will like it, it will get published, and the audience will be the publication's problem.

On the one hand, I admire this stance. It's the "I'm creating what my muse inspires me to create" position, and I'm sure it has resulted in some of the most compelling art ever made.

On the other hand, I don't buy it. The author comes to the page with a worldview, and whether she is aware of it or not, she is creating through the lens of that worldview. Embedded in every sentence, then, are assumptions—about what the reader already knows, about the language that will touch her, about what she finds thrilling or sad or puzzling.

In beginning writers, lack of audience awareness typically results in mechanical problems like disjointed prose; their writing may make sense to them, but it doesn't hold together for their reader. And I've noticed that experienced writers who eschew audience often disappoint. They follow their muse into plot dead ends or long digressions, unaware that they lost their reader's attention long ago.

Plus, isn't being published for being published's sake a sort of empty proposition?

Me, I write to connect, mostly with kids. I write for them, not for myself. I care about reaching them.

The Aldo Zelnick series' audience is 7 to 12 years old or so, is familiar with American pop culture, and can relate to a suburban middle-class life. I'm conscious of this as I write. The stories are told in Aldo's voice, so it's through him that I talk to this audience. They're Aldo's peers. Kids just like him. Kids like McKaiden (pictured above).

I write for the McKaidens (and the McKaylas) of today. Who do you write for?



4 Comments
Leslie Patterson
4/10/2013 01:31:34 am

I agree that writers should keep an audience in mind but only in the back of their mind. I think that too often in trying to reach the widest possible audience writers write to the lowest common denominator and fail to create something that it is truly unique and dazzling. Most of the books I genuinely love must have caused many members of critique groups to scratch their heads and ask, "Who is your audience?"

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Karla Oceanak
4/10/2013 01:37:58 am

That's the conundrum. But still, I think that keeping a certain audience firmly in mind produces the best work, even if that audience is nichey and idiosyncratic. Really, I'm writing for a particular variety of McKaidens.

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Leslie Patterson
4/10/2013 02:06:18 am

Yes, I agree. I know I'm not writing for every reader of historical fiction but trying to appeal to adult readers who like Sarah Waters, Jane Harris, and Patrick deWitt. I just sometimes like to imagine how famous or surprisingly popular works might be received in a critique group. Just imagine the reactions to Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, for example, and yet like it or not, it won the Newbery and the Carnegie.

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Karla Oceanak
4/10/2013 02:42:23 am

And deservedly so! Also, an addendum to my audience screed is that writers who understand and know how to follow the rules can then break them to great effect, especially after they've already built a following.

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