Know Thy Audience

Claire touched on the excellent point of knowing your story.

Knowing what to pick and choose is important. It can mean the difference between a really fabulous story and a meh one. But let’s face it. This is not as easy as it looks. As a writer, we often love everything we write down, and there is the problem that our imaginations can run wild, giving us tons of fodder and many different directions in which to go. Which is why you have to keep one golden rule in mind when crafting your story.

Know thy audience.

What, you say. I don’t write for an audience; I write for myself. Story first; audience later.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but unless you never intend to get published, you WILL have an audience. And the way the publishing world is set up –now, more than ever, you need to place yourself in a niche. This needn’t be as limiting as it sounds. You can do a lot within a genre.

But let’s move on to my golden rule of knowing your audience. Just what am I talking about?

Let me use my new story, West of The Moon. Early on, I knew the story would have two major plots, a love story, and a mystery. This proved to be a problem, as I had to pick and choose what to show within the parameters of the story. And WHAT I chose to show would change the slant of the story. More mystery and the book becomes a mystery, more of the love story and it’s a romance. Regardless, I HAD to choose because if I simply went at the thing willy-nilly, letting it flow organically, then I ran the risk of producing one of those dreaded books that floats out there in nowhere land, the ones that agents and editors alike will say, “I love this, but I don’t know how to sell it.”

Please take those words seriously. Not knowing a clear way to sell a book can KILL your book in a quick, fast, hurry –as my dad used to say. This is why you must know your audience.

I chose to make WOTM a romance -mainly because the love story interested me the most. I loved seeing my characters come together and get their happily ever after. Sure there is a mystery within the story. But it is a romance first and foremost. Thus, I have to know and understand the romance genre. I must understand this when writing scenes, or when deciding what scenes to cut during the editing process. In other words, the romance plot must take center stage in order to satisfy the romance reader. That doesn’t mean that you can’t stretch the parameters of said genre –lord knows I do! WOTM is a historical, paranormal, mystery, suspense, and romance all tied into one. But to make it marketable, it must be a romance above all things.

Sounds a little contrived. But let’s consider it this way: when you walk into an ice cream parlor, you expect them to serve ice cream. Some joker hands you a pizza, you’re not going to be happy. It is the same with a book buyer. There are genres because genre classification helps the reader know what to expect. For giggles, let’s take one of the all time great adventure movies, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. The scene: Indi returns to his old flame, Marion, in order to track down an artifact.

Indiana: Hello, Marion.

Marion: Indiana Jones. I always knew some day you'd come walking back through my door. I never doubted that. Something made it inevitable. So, what are you doing here in Nepal?

Indiana: I need one of the pieces your father collected.

[Marion surprises him with a right cross to the jaw]

Marion: I've learned to hate you in the last ten years.

Indiana: I never meant to hurt you.

Marion: I was a child. I was in love. It was wrong and you knew it.

Indiana: You knew what you were doing.

Marion: Now I do. This is my place. Get out.

–Woo hoo! Bring on the bloody fight with the Nazi’s

And now let’s change it a bit by adding a line from the now infamous, and very romantic movie, The Notebook.

Indiana: Hello, Marion.

Marion: Indiana Jones. I always knew some day you'd come walking back through my door. I never doubted that. Something made it inevitable. So, what are you doing here in Nepal?

Indiana: I need one of the pieces your father collected.

[Marion surprises him with a right cross to the jaw]

Marion: I've learned to hate you in the last ten years.

Indiana: I never meant to hurt you.

Marion: I was a child. I was in love. It was wrong and you knew it.

Indiana: You knew what you were doing.

Marion: Now I do. This is my place. Get out.

Indiana: (as borrowed from the notebook) Summer romances begin for all kinds of reasons, but when all is said and done, they have one thing in common. They're shooting stars, a spectacular moment of light in the heavens, fleeting glimpse of eternity, and in a flash they're gone.

Marion: Kiss me, Indiana

Indiana: (grabs her) Marion. (cue rain and music)

Okay, that was a gross violation toward both movies. But my point is this: can you imagine the audience’s reaction to that? They didn’t slap down their $2.50 for “mush”. Bring on the guns.

Which brings us back to the golden rule: (g) Know Thy Audience. When crafting your story, deciding what scenes to write, what layers of plot and emotion to reveal within said scenes, keep it in the back of your mind. What sort of story are you writing? What are you trying to say in the story? Simply by knowing what sort of story you’re writing can help immensely when it comes to navigating your way through plotting, and increasing both tension and emotion. Remember, what is good tension for a thriller is not necessarily good tension for a romance. An emotional scene in literary fiction might not touch on the same issues as an emotional scene in a mystery.