Your Work vs. Expectations of Readers

[JadeW]

Not to be a slight dissension from the advice given above, but there is a fine balance to be maintained here. On one hand, the above posters here are absolutely correct that you cannot successfully write by committee, but it is equally true that, if you want to sell books, you have to write things which are appealing to the market. The good part is there is a market for everything. The bad part is the markets for some things are MUCH smaller than others.

So, I would contend that you need more beta readers, as suggested above, but especially ones who read extensively and/or write in your genre. Their feedback, personally, I would take more seriously than someone who likes SFF generally, or, worse, just likes fiction in general. Also, you'll find quite a few people here who are exceptional writers, and even better at critiquing. There are several people on this thread alone whose opinion, in my mind, is worth its weight in gold, and more on the forum. They have proven themselves not only capable of writing exceptional work, but also critiquing thoroughly and graciously.

So, if you're looking for beta readers, I would recommend reading the critiques section, commenting on other people's work, and when your post count reaches 30, post a section for review. You'll get a good, quick feel of who does it well and who does it poorly on this site (spoiler alert; I don't think anyone currently posting reviews regularly does this poorly, but we have had some in the past...), and who reads in your genre.

All that to say, I hope to see some of your work in the critiques soon!

I understand your explanation on there being a market for certain types of books or even genres. I'm going to check out the critique section and get a feel for those forums. Thanks for the advise.

As I aim to sell my work, my writing has to appeal to me the reader AND meet the expectations of other readers. This means some compromises, but it also helps rein in my more indulgent impulses.

It's not something I give much conscious thought to while writing, but it's another of the many challenges and one that comes more to the fore during editing.

I would have to know which compromises I'm willing to make with myself and the readers. This is interesting. Thanks for the advise.

Hi! Well, in my opinion, nothing replaces common sense and logic. It is the first guide that allows you to know if what you are writing is inside or outside the parameters. You should consider a story or a novel as a letter to someone you love. That will be your ideal reader (IR). In fact, it is based on this that the thematic orientation later arises; which is divided, yes, depending on the treatment of a subject and the potential IR, in M, MG, YA, A, etc.
But even in an erotic scene, ice will always be ice and the fire, fire. This aspect, which has more to do with logic, in greater terms requires that you always keep in mind the coherence of your story, that there are no contradictions in the dates or characteristics of the characters: if you said that your heroine has blue eyes, later you cannot appear saying that it has them green.
You have to be very careful with that, because it happens or it be ignored even to beta readers. By extension, another of the most serious problems you may encounter will be the famous Deux Ex Machina. The rule of Chekov's gun, come on.

Deep down I'm telling you that the first best reader in your story will always be yourself; it must have happened to you, I imagine, that while you are ordering the children's room, you suddenly find an old box lying around and inside a forgotten manuscript, and when you take what at first was a simple glance, when from the first floor your mother or your husband is calling you to come downstairs, you have just realized that you have been reading that old text absorbed for ten minutes, sometimes even in wonder, I dare say.
This is one of the main reasons why it is recommended that the finished texts should be allowed to rest for at least a couple of weeks before being read again. Since that time has passed, you will have been doing other things in the meantime; then you are much more clear-minded and fresh to face a revision. In fact, Stephen King in his book On Writing recommends six weeks.

With which it is deduced that it is not advisable to let others read your texts until you have made that first rereading alone. What happens in this part of the process is that your mind is no longer creating as in the writing phase, but is reviewing, and is saying in your ear: "hey, here's a character motivation problem", or " Wait, I mean, at what point did someone say that this or that thing was going to happen? ¿From where appeared that gun wich the hero killed the villain?" (Deux ex Machina) .
Therefore, it is important that you take note of all those concerns that appear to you. This will generate a questionnaire that will give rise to a new creative process.
But calm down. First of all, do as many closed-door reviews as you deem appropriate. That, as I said, generates a valuable list of points to correct. But just that.
Do not correct anything yet.

Because now the time has come when you can deliver the text to your beta readers. People of trust. Friends, if possible. You will see that some of the opinions of these match your list. Or new things will appear that no one else has seen. Write them down and add them to your list. But only you know who is right or wrong. Look for the repetition of common patterns. Stephen King recommends eight beta readers; in fact, in the book I cited, King develops this and other themes in a much more didactic and better way.

Hope this help

This is helpful. I should read the book "On Writing." I have it collecting dust on my shelf. But I should do that. Let my story sit and rest for a bit; then go back to it. Thanks for the advise.

This business of writing with an audience in mind isn't just a binary choice. There are many levels to revising a work, right? If I don't care enough about my readers to spellcheck and fix grammar, then I'm being just plain rude as an author. Same goes for correcting continuity errors. Plot holes. Inconsistent characterization. Lapses in voice. Excessive exposition. Breaking genre. Haranguing or lecturing the reader.

OK, by the end of that paragraph we're clearly in the territory of opinion and far removed from simple proofreading. Which is my point. This isn't a simple choice and it certainly isn't as easy as some romantic notion of being true to one's art. Hell, I don't know that I can even claim to have an art; I just want to tell stories.

But, reversing direction here, I'm very aware that the kind of fiction I write has a tiny audience. I'm fine with that. I'm not going to write about anything other than Altearth because that world has more stories in it than I have years left to me. I'm not going to try to attract people who prefer thrillers or horror. I'm not going to write grimdark, I'm going to write historical fantasy. Within that niche, however, I absolutely am going to try to entertain and be cognizant of what entertains.

To put it another way, I don't see any choice to be made. There's no conflict between writing what I want, and writing what my readers enjoy.

I admire the fact that you write what you want to write even though you're aware of where it falls in the readers' market; because you love to write that genre. Thanks for the advise.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

@JadeW - the the first person thing - maybe you had the wrong beta for you. It’s important to try to find people who at least like your style and what you write.then listening to them becomes much more powerful

 

[Joshua Jones]

@JadeW - the the first person thing - maybe you had the wrong beta for you. It’s important to try to find people who at least like your style and what you write.then listening to them becomes much more powerful

@JadeW, I wholeheartedly second this. First person is certainly a perspective used in fantasy, to great effect by some people. That said, it isn't really my preference, as I prefer to write in close 3rd. But there are some great authors who write in this perspective, including some on this forum.

 

[DLCroix]

Expectations of Readers

Now, well, this part I wanted to take it easier.
Because here, rather than talking about the expectations of the readers, I believe that what Harold Bloom calls "the anatomy of influence" weighs much more heavily.
Let's remember, for example, when we were girls. In class, the Arts teacher asked us to make a drawing on the block on any subject. So what did we do? We were looking at the partner on the side, right? Somehow we needed to have an idea of what others were doing; then, the source of inspiration we were looking for had a cultural exchange nature; not marketing. It was an instinctive, innocent desire.
In the same way, as members of a society that we are, with everything we do unconsciously we seek to identify ourselves with others, we need that approval to know that we are not weird bugs, and that there are people who even enjoy our ideas or creations. Then, from approval we move on to admiration. Which is much more important than respect, because it implies an affection, a feeling, we obtain an emotional reward that sometimes floods our hearts.
In the Heavy Metal that is seen a lot: regardless of what style each one has, men and women alike we are a brotherhood that immediately closes ranks in the face of any adversity or danger.

And I'm not talking about marketing yet.

I personally think that this feeling, this pure philosophy, because it is a need of the soul, is something that should accompany every artist until the end of their days.
But what is an artist? What is the obligation of the artist? What should be the goal of Art, like this with a capital A?
Need for expression, on the one hand. That is the raw material we all start with. For which Mom would scold us every time we drew a picture on the wall.
Then, the schools, the culture, the society of which we are a part, speaks to us of styles, structures, materials, aesthetic schools, blah blah, blah. For most of us, all of that enters through one ear and leaves through the other; what we want is to go out and play with others.

But not all, exactly. Because there are some of us who, well, we don't pay much attention to what the teacher says. But somehow something begins to draw our attention in those images of sculptures or paintings that they show us. We have our first notions of beauty, of a certain solemnity and almost spiritual precision. The delicacy of a dancer's movements. The thrilling held crescendo of a tenor.
So Sunday visits to a museum no longer seem boring to us; it starts to look like visiting a church. Because we begin to perceive that there is a hidden mystery out there, and although we still do not know what it is, it seems good and eminent to us.
Some of us are even moved. It makes us feel a strange anxiety that absorbs us and leaves us groggy.
Until mom pulls our sleeves so we can continue to see the other things.

Thus the desire for knowledge is born.

Or when we listen to certain music we remain silent, absorbed. Also when a teacher or one of our classmates reads something in class: with good luck, some of us, although we still do not know what it is called, begin to capture the lyrical flight and emotion. When the words are the ones that become music. Then we discover another form of beauty.
Traces of a first love.
And I could bet that almost all of us fell in love for the first time in winter.

And I'm not talking about marketing yet.

Because even we ourselves do not realize when we begin to separate ourselves from the rest; most to draw first. Then, as we read and learn, our conceptual framework begins to expand. We begin to be aware of the world around us. We started to have an opinion on many things. We have a critical stance. For the first time we are aware of our technical limitations. They are the first features of what Harold Bloom calls "the anguish of influence." We long to draw a certain picture or write a poem; but we find it, ho, childish, and obviously we feel frustrated.

So we have discovered a need for evolution.

This is what motivates us to learn. What drives us to watch certain programs, read certain books. This will help strengthen our critical stance. In all artistic manifestations we are already capable of establishing differentiated categories. Certain things we like more than others, it is inevitable; but also we already have an idea of why that is due, and we are even able to say what things we would change. So, from the anguish of influence, we move on to the anatomy of influence. We began to have referents, authors with whom we identified. We began to establish our own thematic corpus. We began to intervene in reality.
It is here that perhaps for the first time we discover that there is something called a reader, what in Communications is called the receiver of the message.
And? Nothing changes too much in our conception of the matter.

In reality, what matters most to us at that moment, what should matter to us, is the posture we should have towards our creations. Our evolution has brought us to a point where, whatever this may be, we have a position vis-à-vis Art, and in particular Literature. Which we defend; incidentally, all opinions are valid.
But, when we ask ourselves what we would change, or how we would write this or that story or novel, how we think that these should be, according to our particular tastes, that thematic corpus that was previously only a theoretical frame of reference, now becomes practical.
That's when we decide to take action, and we open a new document or put a blank sheet in the typewriter. We already know exactly the type of story or novel we want to write. Or we should know. In this regard, a highly recommended system is to design a plot scheme that considers all aspects of the characters, the type of story and ideas about their likely development. It is only a reference, beware, a guide to guide us; not an Autocad with everything detailed.
But, as Harold Bloom says, we already somehow already know that on an unconscious level. We know what we mean; all we have to resolve is how we say it.
Likewise, that mysterious intangible entity called the reader is also beginning to interest us. But because of the need for approval I was talking about at the beginning. Then, of our own free will, we pay more attention to Communication classes. Deep down, all the conventions of writing (style) and grammar (form) have to do with ensuring that the message in the bottle that we throw into the sea reaches that beach or port where our reader is.

And I'm not talking about marketing yet.

Nor am I going to do it. Because of all that analysis that over so many years we have been doing as a result of seeing or reading one and another thing, it results in that the position of each writer is unique and original, or should be. Naturally it will influence in a decisive way how much each writer reads, because, as I said to another colleague in another thread, to learn to write well the most important thing is to read a lot and about everything. Which means that it is not good to read only fantasy or sci-fi if one likes to write fantasy or sci-fi. Well, that is one of the main causes that other authors from the mainstream, and therefore do not belong to the fandom, have been giving us a good beating for a long time. My opinion is that the New Wave, which was the great hope, with very few exceptions, completely missed the shot.
Then let's not make the same mistake ourselves. At least let's write well.

Ultimately, I think the only important thing about writing is enjoying the game. That's like faith, or being in love, something that only one knows. It is something pure that comes from your heart, and while that happens, I assure you that there will always be someone willing to read what you write.
Because, as other colleagues said, there are no formulas that guarantee success. The only thing you can do is your best and most honest effort, and be true to what makes your heart beat and lift it as you write. Because if sometimes tears roll down your cheeks while you write, I also assure you that someone somewhere will also get excited when they read it. And that is the key to everything.
Remember that first day when you discovered that serene beauty.

In the same trench. With everyone. Always!

 

[Toby Frost]

By and large, I agree with what's been said, but I would add that it's one thing to write a coherent story, with good characters and so on, that fulfils the usual expectations of most readers of that sort of story. This is an extremely broad definition, and boils down to writing a functional novel. I think that, unless you're going to accept that what you're doing is entirely experimental and largely for yourself, you are going to have to create something that works on that kind of basic level.

However, then you get trends in writing. There is, I suspect, no point in writing a vampire novel or a medieval epic fantasy because Twilight or A Game of Thrones sold a lot of copies: if you did, and even your book was good, fashion would probably have moved on by the time that it saw print. Also, if you are writing something that you don't really care about because it might shift copies, the chances rise that what you produce will be stale and dull, and will at best be a copy of something superior.

So, overall, I would take care to produce something that is a workable, good novel of its sort. It might be useful to have some sort of idea of what kind of novel it is, for terms of sales. But I would also make sure that you're producing something that interests you and which you enjoy. After all, writing a novel is a long process, and you wouldn't want to get tired of it halfway-through.

 

[sknox]

>There is, I suspect, no point in writing a vampire novel or a medieval epic fantasy because Twilight or A Game of Thrones sold a lot of copies: if you did, and even your book was good, fashion would probably have moved on by the time that it saw print.

Just in terms purely of sales, I don't think this is correct. Look at all the clones of Hunger Games that got made. The original wasn't very good, the clones were worse, yet several sold tons and at least a couple got picked up as movie franchises. Anne Rice opened the floodgates for vampire stories, gates that appear impossible to close. This doesn't mean the flood is all good or all bad, but it does mean there are sales to be made by dipping your oar into it.

Me, I appear to have chosen to walk. *sigh*

 

[Joshua Jones]

>There is, I suspect, no point in writing a vampire novel or a medieval epic fantasy because Twilight or A Game of Thrones sold a lot of copies: if you did, and even your book was good, fashion would probably have moved on by the time that it saw print.

Just in terms purely of sales, I don't think this is correct. Look at all the clones of Hunger Games that got made. The original wasn't very good, the clones were worse, yet several sold tons and at least a couple got picked up as movie franchises. Anne Rice opened the floodgates for vampire stories, gates that appear impossible to close. This doesn't mean the flood is all good or all bad, but it does mean there are sales to be made by dipping your oar into it.

Me, I appear to have chosen to walk. *sigh*

I'll let Toby argue his own position, but there is another point regarding jumping on trends not discussed; that of personal brand. Granted, this isn't so much relevant when one is starting out, but an established author can do significantly more harm than good by going in a completely different direction than past work. If the customers who buy based on name don't know what to expect, they will stop buying based on name. Think, for example, of the ramifications of, say, Stephen King stepping into the teenage vampire romance market? There would be active riots on the streets outside his Maine abode, and rightly so!

I suppose it is relevant to the new author, though, in the sense that the new author should be careful what they write to some degree, so they don't become shoehorned into a quickly passing fad. Then again, I think readers will forgive a new author for branching out and trying new things as they find their niche. But once established with a strong base of readers? Give them what they want; your unique voice and stories they have come to love.

 

[sknox]

A good many authors resort to pen names for exactly that reason--to publish in a different genre.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Try and find a writing group. Preferably one that isn't just a general group - but better than nothing. The critiques section is good and highly recommended (cos I like critiquing).

However, it's not perfect. The critiques are distant and to be blunt, not up front and personal.

I joined

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Others are available.

Although curtailed somewhat by the covid situation at the moment (currenly using group on line meetings). The principal is you place a piece for critique into a Dropbox. Members read them and then at a biweekly face to face meetup, they give their opinions of your work. There are various levels of competence, but even the most inexperienced critiquer can spot spot things other's have missed. But these are all expiring/published writers and they feel your pain and the advice is usually meant and mostly is offered to improve your effort.

There's usually a social aspect in the pub later. This is more useful than you might think, because you get into the mindset and experiences of other writers. Hubbies and wifies are often supportive (legal redress is available for those that aren't) but if they don't get the "writing bug" then there's only so far they can go.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I'll let Toby argue his own position, but there is another point regarding jumping on trends not discussed; that of personal brand. Granted, this isn't so much relevant when one is starting out, but an established author can do significantly more harm than good by going in a completely different direction than past work. If the customers who buy based on name don't know what to expect, they will stop buying based on name. Think, for example, of the ramifications of, say, Stephen King stepping into the teenage vampire romance market? There would be active riots on the streets outside his Maine abode, and rightly so!

Except for the many authors who, like Kim Stanley Robinson for instance, have developed a personal brand which is their overall level of imagination, originality, and skill at telling stories - regardless of genre or sub-genre.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Except for the many authors who, like Kim Stanley Robinson for instance, have developed a personal brand which is their overall level of imagination, originality, and skill at telling stories - regardless of genre or sub-genre.

This is so important and often overlooked. You can also become your own brand.

 

[Joshua Jones]

I would just like to state that my previous post is an example of what happens when you think you've hit on a clever point while multitasking and don't give it time to peculate, especially being Joshua Jones is a penname for exactly the purpose mentioned by others.

I'm going to go sit in the corner now...

 

[Astro Pen]

I'll second what @TheEndIsNigh posted above. Writers groups are a brilliant way to keep motivated and also develop your reading (aloud) skills. The main drawback is that they tend to focus on producing weekly flash fiction which can suck energy away from novel writing. Though I can write group presentable (ie not 100% polished) 500 to 1000 word shorts pretty fast, some people do get bogged down with it.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

I'll second what @TheEndIsNigh posted above. Writers groups are a brilliant way to keep motivated and also develop your reading (aloud) skills. The main drawback is that they tend to focus on producing weekly flash fiction which can suck energy away from novel writing. Though I can write group presentable (ie not 100% polished) 500 to 1000 word shorts pretty fast, some people do get bogged down with it.

The one I mentioned above, did not require anyone to read there piece aloud. This would have eten into the meeting timefor one. The pieces were read and critiqued at home with a synopsis of the critique being read by the critiquer at the meeting (if the critiquer wanted to) Often the marked up comments were handed to the author for later digestion. Just attending the meeting without contributions were was also possible although people were expected to "have a go", but it wasn't a condition for attendance.

You could also sectionalise novels, moving through the chapters a meeting at a time.

This was good because character development and inconsistancies were often spotted.

 

[Ambrose]

I used to have a quotation on my wall at work. It stated: Write for thyself alone. Whisper in thine own ear. Then, if you are fortunate, you may have eaves-droppers'. I cannot recall the source of the quote.

 

[DLCroix]

There is, I suspect, no point in writing a vampire novel or a medieval epic fantasy because Twilight or A Game of Thrones sold a lot of copies

Hi! What a good point, Toby Frost; you nailed it! But I personally think that this process can be compared, for example, with music. Suppose you have a band; well, everyone in the band has enough head to notice that making a three note song is already too trite, the equivalent with literature would be, for example, based on what you say, vampire novels for YA, or something like Game of Thrones. But how do simple amateur musicians realize something like this? Well, because they have been listening to music for a long time; in literature obviously that perception is possible because of something that in a certain way you also mention, and one will have more capacity to perceive more things (or notice what kind of requirements make a novel more viable and salable than others) the more one reads, and of everything, not just what one likes. The quality of the analysis that each author makes depends on that experiential theoretical training. It is what in Marketing usually calls Know How.

Therefore, I believe that, on the one hand, it is still useful to repeat the formula, as it is understood from what sknox said. But you can also look for variants. It is possible, for example, move a Vampire novel already to the Middle Ages (something in which Ann Rice also left us breadcrumbs to follow the path when she moved her characters to the Roman or Egyptian empires in Ramses the Damned, for example ). Or it can transfer that argument to space, or to a flint fantasy (or portal fantasy, since we are in the thread). But, for that, it is also necessary for one to have notions of those genres.
Although there is also the style of each writer. Because it is one thing for one to be able to understand how or in what way one can write a certain work and quite another to want to write that work.
In this case, we return to the example of the musicians and the question of being faithful to a style. It is something that is achieved only after a while, sure, but it is worth trying.

I used to have a quotation on my wall at work. It stated: Write for thyself alone. Whisper in thine own ear. Then, if you are fortunate, you may have eaves-droppers'. I cannot recall the source of the quote.

Well, it is obvious that one initially writes the story that he would like to read. But from there to make it a maxim, I don't know, let me disagree. Because IMO that could even be closer not to literature, but to a kind of written relief. What's more, when one reaches a certain point in one's evolution, one is even capable of masking himself so that the narrator that is invented for each story is increasingly different from the writer. A clear example of this is when we create a type of narrator who does not have our same sex; I'm not going to tell you what kind of storyteller Burroughs came up with for The Nova Express. Naturally, one becomes aware of these aspects when he learns to let his puppets think and act according to their own nature. For example, when I have to choose between killing character A or character B, I usually toss a coin, so that the story decides its own chance and does not depend on me or any intervention of mine. More or less as it would happen in real life. And it's amazing to see that most of the time the character that I wanted to survive, indeed, survives. To see how life orders things even in the case of a fantasy.

 

[sknox]

It's not what you write, it's how you write it.
It's not what you paint, it's how you paint it.
With musicians, it's not what you play, it's how you play it. That's why cover bands exist. It's why jazz musicians eternally rework classic songs that everyone knows. As for three note songs (did you mean three chords?), ambient would have something to say about that.

I would set aside expectations and simply try to do one's best. Do that first. Then listen to others and try to revise to your best. Then put it out and realize not everyone in the crowd is going to dance, and not everyone's going to buy the album.

Which is easy to say. The rub comes at two sore points. One, few expect everyone will love their work, but they very much would like to sell enough copies to quit the day job. Or break even. Or whatever is one's personal measure of success. It probably goes further than my mom liked it. Getting to that marker is both difficult and disheartening and there's really no way to make the path shorter. But lots of ways to make it longer.

The other sore point is self-esteem. Some (not all) writers take bad reviews or outright silence very personally. It's all very well to urge them not to do this, but the heart feels what it feels. Statements like maybe you're not cut out to be a writer are not only not helpful, they're not even always true. There are easy answers--hundreds of them, in fact. And every one is wrong for someone and right for someone else, and there's no way to know without trying and you'll never know whether or not you tried hard enough.

So. Write for your self? Or write to market? Or some third way?

Yes. No. All of them. None of them.

Aren't you glad you asked?

 

[DLCroix]

It's not what you write, it's how you write it.
It's not what you paint, it's how you paint it.

Absolutely agree! By the way, what a can to do covers! We in the band always said that if you had a brain, then you should be able to play your own songs; not other people's stuff. And time proved us right, one day we even opened for U.D.O.
Yes, I believe that expectations are the crux of the matter. Some have expectations too high; I just think like that guy from Deep Purple who said the whole thing was about enjoying what you do without having any more ambitions than being as honest as possible. The rest is uncertain. It depends on things that we can sometimes intervene in, but even then only up to a point.

 

[Steve Harrison]

So. Write for your self? Or write to market? Or some third way?
Yes. No. All of them. None of them.

That covers it all. I write to market for myself.

Which simply means I know what I like - as a reader - about the genres I write, and I tailor my writing accordingly. It's a collaboration between me the writer and me the reader.

However, I have no idea what the genre of my WIP novel is, so it's total writing indulgence!

 

[JohnM]

If anyone wants to write to an audience then find out what that audience wants. Also, look at current and older works in whatever genre you're writing in. Some writers think writing should be something else but I assure you, markets have certain expectations. I work for a successful publisher of fiction. And there are certain things that resonate most with readers.

I offer the superhero movie formula as an example. Batman, Spider-Man, it doesn't matter. You need the following: one attractive woman, one interesting villain and one interesting hero. The villain does something bad. The hero responds in three acts, while dealing with his personal romantic relationship. "Modern" has nothing to do with a basic human dynamic. People do want to see a dedicated, heroic hero, not some deeply flawed version. They want the romance to be authentic. And the villain needs to be believable, not some overdone maniac who the reader cannot grasp as being a realistic functional villain.

Hollywood started the fiction that a failed movie "didn't find its audience." That is simply not true. A failed movie means people did not want to see it and told people they know not to see it. Writing does not "find" an audience either. It's either a good story or it isn't.

So, the writer who knows his audience takes his ideas and presents them in a way that he enjoys and that his audience enjoys. After years of feedback, and sales, the writer finds out if his readers - the people who buy his books - really enjoy them. That is the goal.

Sure, anyone can write for themselves, but of the writers I know, the audience needs to enjoy what you do, and be able to relate to it.