Audience

One of the things writers have to think about is who they are writing for. Who is their target audience? Are their stories for children? For teens? For bored housewives? For literature buff English majors? Sometimes the themes are the same, but obviously the writing, the characters, the focus of the scenes are drastically different.

I never used to think about my audience. Well, obviously when I wrote stories for class I was writing with my teacher in mind, but for the most part, I have always written for myself. Occasionally I wrote with the intention of showing my closest friends what I had written, but I mostly figured I'd be the only one to ever see it. I wrote all kinds random snippets thought up during class, from a dream, from a mashup of different movies or books or TV shows. Many of those snippets are still filed away in my filing cabinet, never seen by the light of day, let alone an audience. I haven't even gone back to read them in awhile.

When I started writing my National Novel Writing Month novels, I wasn't thinking about audience, either. My only thought for those first few years was to get to the end. Get to 50k. It wasn't until the writing group cropped up around me that I started thinking about audience, knowing I would ask some of them to read my work and give me feedback.

And then there was Nanowrimo last year...where I was truly only writing for myself. Nobody will ever read that. Not friends, not family. Maybe not even me. It was an exercise purely in therapy and writing 50,000 words.

Since I've decided to work towards publication, it's become apparent that I have to start thinking about it. Looking back over what I've written when I didn't have an audience in mind, my writing seems mostly geared towards the young adult fantasy crowd. I've tried darker, more mature stuff, but the YA fantasy comes most naturally. Now I can write with that in the back of my mind.

What's your favorite genre? I always like to challenge myself as a writer and try on different genres, so I'm always open to suggestions for a new project.

A Rose by any other Name...

I am abysmal at coming up with titles and names. I ordinarily add placeholder names and titles in all of my writings, and when it comes time to figure out what to actually name or title things, I really struggle. I think of something clever, and then clever seems obnoxious. I think of something bold, and then it feels pretentious. I think of something bland, and it sticks, but I know nobody will ever want to read it.

So far none of this has really mattered. I know someday it probably will. I hate titles. I will probably call upon you, readers, to help me with names and titles from time to time.

Now is one of those times. My writing group (hi guys!) has decided to put together a website. I am super excited about this. We have ideas for content, we're going to use it to promote our group and it'll be a great tool when National Novel Writing Month rolls around. It'll be a place where we can grow and document our journey and share our insights and knowledge all in one place. We even know what platform we're using and who is going to host it.

It's all ready to go.

Except that we need a name.

We just can't seem to find something we all agree on that isn't already being used or will be buried in a Google search, or so offbeat that nobody will ever search for it. Visibility is our trouble. And consensus.

So. Say you wanted to join a writing group. What kinds of names would be appealing to you?

Character Auditions

As a writer, I always have voices in my head: characters who have a story to tell, or characters who want me to get to know them better so I'll find a story for them. Rarely is it the other way around. But sometimes it is. Sometimes I have a world with no people in it and it needs filling.

When this happens, I like to put a call out to friends and family for character suggestions. A casting call, if you will. It's worked really well for me in the past, so it's something I'd like to do more of from time to time. Usually it'll be for minor characters. Right now, though, I need protagonists/antagonists.

The story will be urban fantasy, since I realized in my last post that that's where my head is at. So vampires, werewolves, witches, zombies, magicians, demons - all fair game. What's a character you always wanted to see in one of those worlds that was never there? Feel free to submit yourself as a character, and what role you'd like to play. Always wanted to be a vampire? I can write you as one (disclaimer: this would be a caricature of you, so you wouldn't be allowed take offense to over-exaggerations).

So, do you have characters you'd like to audition to be in my next story?