For any piece of writing to be successful, the author must know who their intended audience is. Before sitting down to write, one should ask, “Who am I aiming this for?” If you were asked to write something for a group of kids in nursery school, you wouldn’t want a story about a serial killer that has a severe case of schizophrenia, you would want to write fairy tales or nursery rhymes since they’re fairly happy and amusing for young children.
Before I started to write this blog entry, I did a little research and looked at two of my favorite authors, Darren Shan and Cassandra Clare. As I read things on their websites, I asked myself, “What kept me reading their books?” It didn’t take long to get an answer. I liked what they wrote about. Each of them had stories that I found appealing because I liked the plot and characters.
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| my copy of the Cirque du Freak series |
The first series I had read by Darren Shan was his Cirque du Freak series. At the time I was about thirteen and I thought it was terrifying. And I had loved it because I had wanted to read a horror novel. I read that series three times between the eighth grade to the eleventh. Somewhere between that time period, I found that the same books that terrified me when I was thirteen hardly had an effect by the time I was seventeen. Part of that reason was because I had read it a few times, but a larger part was that I was starting to fall out of the age range that Cirque du Freak targeted. It was a series for children and I was growing up. What scared me at thirteen wasn’t as scary because it wasn’t intended to scare a seventeen year old.
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| my copy of the first three Moral Instruments books |
I found with Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series, it had an older intended audience than Cirque du Freak. It had plenty of action, very in depth relationships between the characters and the plot was well constructed. If you think about it however, so does Twilight, so why didn’t I like that? The answer, I’m not apart of the Twilight audience. It didn’t hook me nearly as well as it did for Twilight fans. As I read through it, it seemed like I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as others. From the beginning when I read City of Bones however, I was a member of the audience. It was exciting and forced me to keep turning the pages. I was constantly trying to guess what was going to happen next.
When writing, it’s important to keep in mind who the writing is intended for. A story meant for young children won’t appeal to adults nearly as well. People looking for action, wouldn’t find as much satisfaction out of a love story compared to someone that wants to read romance. To make a piece of writing successfully, it is important to establish who your audience is and keep them in mind as you write.
On Twilight-the reason I didn't like the series (even though I read the whole thing) was because I found the characters to be flat. Yes, we all know they sparkled, but otherwise we didn't learn much about them. To me, the lead female character was weak. I wanted a forceful young woman, not a whiny brat without much in the brains department. The overall idea was good, the characters were not. At the age of 12 I was reading Stephen King novels. I've read thousands of novels and can't even begin to remember all I've read. I do know that I go for the same authors over and over again: Stephen King, John Saul, Anne Rice for that genre. I've read many genres and I agree that writing for your target audience is important. I also know if you write something that looks like it's going to be out of the audience you were aiming for, but it looks fabulous, take a chance and write for a new audience.
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