A brief blog post rambling on about audience and writing

[aldersprig]

I’ve been thinking about audience lately.

(Hi, Audience!)

So some of what I’ve been thinking is how things like Rin & Girey started out as this entirely self-indulgent story, and how now it’s one of my most in-depth worlds (Addergoole/Fae Apoc is THE most in depth, but that’s because of t

read on…

Comments

[kailing]

sadly still cannot access your website while using a VPN; but every few days or so i've been going in to read via my phone.
im not entirely sure where your mind is regarding audience, but i, for one data point, favor you and your writing precisely because it is not just one thing/theme. sure, you have some themes you enjoy exploring in various ways, but in general you seem to delight in stretching, and trying out new things, and throwing lots of balls around to see where they land, and what might grow out.
that really vibes with a lot of how i live my life, or wish to when there are fewer limitations.
and i think it just makes for great reading/stories.

otherwise, for a prolific writer to have different readers who read some of their stories, but not others...i think that's normal, and not necessarily a bad thing. you bring a lot of people a lot of pleasure as it stands.

[kelkyag]

Hi, Author!

I am part of the audience for some of your work. And I am not the right audience for other bits of your work. (Sometimes I read it anyway. Sometimes this leads to regrets. Happens, and it's on me. You generally label things clearly enough that I know whether I'm being foolish.) This is a fine and reasonable thing. There aren't many writers whose every word I will appreciate reading.

You can't possibly please all of the people all of the time, because we want actively conflicting things. That's okay! (Some people will want things you don't want to write. They can figure that out and find other authors to follow. Also okay!)

…Speaking of bored, how do niche authors keep from getting bored? Money?
Sometimes money. Sometimes having multiple niches, maybe even under different pen names so it's not obvious. Sometimes because there's always more detail to dig into or another part of the world to develop or an interesting new character arriving on the scene. Sometimes because the story or charcters drive them onward. Sometimes because it's really, really their thing, and they'll happily write variations on the same themes or stories indefinitely. Sometimes ... lots of reasons.

<warm fuzzies> Thank you for sharing your writing!

[aldersprig]

(Sometimes I read it anyway. Sometimes this leads to regrets. Happens, and it’s on me. You generally label things clearly enough that I know whether I’m being foolish.)

I know this feeling! This happens to me sometimes.

Thank you for sharing your writing!

Awwww thank you!

[sauergeek]

“I am not the audience for this” is totally fine, and I have to remember that.

I keep surprising myself this way. There are some authors (Ray Bradbury, Ursula Vernon) where I have loved everything they've ever produced and greedily seek more. There are other authors (Lois McMaster Bujold was the first one where I realized it) where I love some of their work (in her case, all her fantasy work I've encountered) and can't stand some of their work (the whole Vorkosigan Saga).

I have to remember that it's OK to not like a story, whether for clearly articulable reasons, or just this vague feeling of "it's not doing it for me".

how do niche authors keep from getting bored

I suspect the answers here are all over the map. Tom Lehrer only wrote music as a hobby, but not much even then, and mostly stopped when he got tired of it. (See Hanukkah in Santa Monica for one of his rare later songs.)

Arguably money in quantity demonstrates that the niche is bigger than expected. Sharon Lee and Steve Miller — authors of the straight-up space opera Liaden Universe books — thought they were done after writing a three-book series. Then they got on the Internet (specifically Usenet News) and discovered a huge fanbase, including a fan-consensus title of the nonexistent fourth book (which they adopted). Their space opera series is now pushing 20 books, and they're writing more.

But I expect what keeps most authors going is that they're at least having some amount of fun with it. Depending on how they write, they may also want to see how the story comes out themselves. Or it's a creative outlet for them, which may not include any sort of fan base.

[aldersprig]

Another take for authors: I can read one Eddings series but not another, because they’re so similar.