Target Your Audience Part II

In yesterday's post, Davin's comment about multiple elements in stories made me consider how we go about targeting our primary audience. My response in the comments, while somewhat effective, doesn't get into the heart of the matter as well as I'd like.

As Davin states, someone might pick up your work even if they're not in your target audience. And though he is a scientist, we know that Davin prefers to write (and read) literary fiction. He also has a thing for Leo Tolstoy, but we won't get into that here ;).

However, this doesn't preclude him from say, picking up a science fiction novel, or a mystery, or an epic fantasy/thriller/insert genre here based on any number of factors. He could know the person (thank you for the compliment, by the way), get a recommendation, or even be entranced by the cover art.

Unlike public relations and marketing, where your audience is ironclad, audience in novels is a much more fluid thing. It's also infinitely more organic. I mentioned yesterday that I tend to write stuff for a more science-y crowd -- that's my audience because those are the types of characters I most often hear in my head.

Renee, Susan, and Anita, on the other hand, write for teenagers because (I'm assuming here, ladies, so correct me if I'm wrong) that's the age level they hear the voice of their main character in. Bane writes MG. Same reason.

So you see, your target audience changes based not on research and targeting and all that fun PR stuff, but on who the main character is. This is also why someone like Davin (or any of my dear readers) can pick up a random book in a different genre and still enjoy it. You might not understand the common tropes in the story, but if it's a good novel then it doesn't matter. An interesting plot or an interesting character will always win the day.

In Praise of Being Emotional

Yesterday on The Literary Lab (a fine blog I've mentioned before), Davin posted about a concept he called "writing naked."

Now, that doesn't mean literally writing naked. If you do that's fine ... I don't judge. What it does mean is that you're allowing your emotions to show through in your writing. This is, in fact, a state any good writer should strive for in their story.

Why is that? Well, Our Pal In Maine (Stephen King) once said that he writes things that frighten him. That's why his books have gotten progressively darker. As he explores his own fears, fewer and fewer things scare him. So he writes thing darker to frighten himself yet again.

I submit that we should attempt to do the same thing for all our emotions. If we're aiming for our characters to be angry, think about the situation in terms of what would make your own blood boil. If we're aiming for sad, grieving, happy, entertained -- take your pick -- we should try to elicit those emotions in ourselves as we're writing. Otherwise what's the point?

If we can't affect our own feelings, then we will be unable, I feel, to affect the feelings of others. Your thoughts?

"Unrelenting Teenage Angst"

Over at The Literary Lab today is an interesting discussion about the acceptability of "dark" fiction. The general consensus appears to be that darkness has its place in contemporary fiction right alongside the lighthearted, hopeful pieces.

This post's title is tied into the comment I made in that thread about what I've termed "unrelenting teenage angst," or UTA for short. What is UTA, you might ask?*

UTA is code for the stories where the characters moan about how horrible their lives are, how bad things always happen to them, blah blah blah. These are the books, and you can all probably think of at least one (I won't mention my favorite example, but you should be able to guess), where the hero and/or heroine is a sad sack (think Eeyore) who's Very Depressed about their entire life. Mind you, a story like that is not automatically a UTA candidate. That august classification only goes to the stories where everything around the MC is going well and the only things they talk about are the bad things.

UTA winners (it's not an award you want) are also discovered when you read the book/see the movie and want to reach in and smack some sense into the MC. For sad-sack boys, there's usually the pretty girl who wants to make them happy. Reverse is true for sad-sack girls. But the MC is so depress(ing) that they pay zero attention to said person and continue on their bullet train to Angst-ville.

In my experience, UTA is a casualty of sloppy writing and unrealized characters (at least from my perspective). Because you can write someone who's depressed and doesn't see the good in life, and could make it work wonderfully. But, and this is just my opinion, you need some happiness to break up the clouds. That's the way to make a good story. Not with UTA.

* It actually doesn't matter if you ask or not. I'm still going to explain it.