What if you don't know who your audience is?

[Feo Takahari]

I'm thinking of restarting work on a novel I got a few chapters into writing. It's what you might call a children's story all grown up--all the tropes, the ideas, and to a certain extent the moral compass of children's fiction, applied to subject matter that a children's story wouldn't usually tackle. The problem is, I'm not really sure who the audience would be. I'm afraid dark fantasy fans might scoff at its idealism, but the amount of disturbing content necessary to make the story work could be a hard sell to fans of other genres. Is it worth writing the book if you don't know who would want to read it? And if you don't know, how do you find out?

 

[Svrtnsse]

Could you write a short story or two based on the same principle and see how those work, or would the format be too different?

 

[Feo Takahari]

I don't currently have any ideas for short stories that would be similar in style. I could probably post an excerpt in the Showcase and see what people think of it, but that would have to wait until it's a little more polished. (For reference, this was the story I excerpted here.)

 

[Svrtnsse]

Interesting...

I'll have to admit I didn't quite get all of what went on there, but it was quite clear that something was and I suspect it would have been more clear with some more context.

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Your concept sounds like it could be interesting in theory; a book dealing with adult matters, but written in the way of a children's story. I don't know that I would be the target audience for such a book, but I still like the idea.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Admittedly. I'm in something of the same position, only I already started the book and I'm about halfway through it. I mentioned it in another thread, but I really don't know who would want to read it.
I plan on finishing the book anyway, self-publish and fiddle a bit with marketing to try and get an idea for how it's done - kind of like I'm doing with the writing. Test some things to figure it out and see how it works and learn from it so I can avoid making stupid mistakes later.

Perhaps I could try and write some short stories similar to the novel and try to get them published in some collection. Maybe that'll lead to readers getting interested in my book? Who knows...

 

[CupofJoe]

I don't know her work well [but I heard from a friend that loves her writing], but Angela Carter leaps to mind.
She [re]wrote the little red riding hood tale as a much darker adult tale, the company of wolves.
In my head - just about all the "great" fairy tales are adult tales that are told to children, usually because they are shorter tales [and involve overt fantasy ] but they aren't that different from the Greek myths.

 

[JRFLynn]

I'm afraid dark fantasy fans might scoff at its idealism, but the amount of disturbing content necessary to make the story work could be a hard sell to fans of other genres. Is it worth writing the book if you don't know who would want to read it? And if you don't know, how do you find out?

Hey Feo, you are describing my book (and fears) exactly. Should children play a central role in dark fantasy, when it's typically characterized with lots of horror and gore? I think the fact they are children will up the ante so to speak, because normally people don't see a lot of stories with children faced with really disturbing stuff (Silent Hill comes to mind)...yet because they're young there's still that endearing innocence and idealism that carries them through. I say go for it.

If you think about it, most animes feature young kids faced with horrifying stuff, Elfen Lied is just one example. That was gory as heck, but it's touted as one of the best animes out there by a predominantly YA audience. Books aren't animes, but being that most readers of fantasy are YA anyways, there has to be some market out there for disturbing, gory, creepy tales or it wouldn't be near as popular as we see.

 

[Jabrosky]

My mom once suggested that teenage boys would form my most loyal fanbase. I don't normally aim to write YA fiction, but I do like to write action-packed stories and sexy female characters, so I can see why she would think that. Problem is, I don't know how many teenage boys (as opposed to girls) read fiction these days.

 

[GeekDavid]

I gotta disagree with the basic premise here.

I don't like the idea of aiming a book at a specific audience. I think a writer should craft the best story he/she can, and let it find its own audience.

A really good story can -- and has -- gotten readers from people who might not be considered the natural audience for it. For example, I am not a fan of urban fantasy. However, based on friend recommendations and the strength of his Codex Alera series, which I adore, I tried Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, and now I am a fan of that series, even though I'm still not really a fan of urban fantasy. A good story and the nudging of friends convinced me to read a book that I am not part of the natural audience for.

Write the best story you can. Let it find its own audience.

 

[Braveface]

Sounds good, given all the childish adults around.

 

[GeekDavid]

Sounds good, given all the childish adults around.

I happen to like several things labeled as "YA."

Does that make me childish? I'm fine with that. I think adults who lose their childlike sense of wonder are boring and stodgy.

 

[Braveface]

I happen to like several things labeled as "YA."

Does that make me childish? I'm fine with that. I think adults who lose their childlike sense of wonder are boring and stodgy.

It was a somewhat off-the-cuff comment.

But it was more to do with it being a book with adult themes, not YA themes, in a childrens' (not YA) structure.

That would suit immature adults as well as people who 'get' that it is deliberate. Those who are 'just there for Godzilla'.



Or Charizard...to be slightly more contemporary.



But to the point you made, not at all. But I'm not big on escapism through reading generally if I am honest.

 

[Feo Takahari]

@Geekdavid: I have a history of alienating my audience. At the beginning of the second chapter of Eternal, I actually had a note that the story was going to get a lot darker now, but I wrote it that way because I thought it needed to. The story hemorrhaged readers after the "iron spike" scene in chapter 3. (On the other hand, when I straight-out categorized Cold Steel as an erotic horror story, it attracted a much smaller audience in the first place.)

Because this story probably won't have sexual content, I have a wider range of markets I could aim for, but I still don't want to try to sell to people whom the violence would just be too much for. I also don't want to sell to people who only want violence, because the violence serves story purposes and there probably isn't enough of it for gore fiends. I'm just worried there might not be enough of an audience left.

Maybe I'd feel better about this if I was a dark fantasy fan. When I try to read the genre, it usually feels to me like violence for violence's sake, and that isn't what I want to write. But dark fantasy seems to be the genre where you can get away with strong violence, so I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to market it to fans of other genres.

 

[Ruby]

Lots of adults read YA. They also read children's books eg The Hobbit, Harry Potter. But this is a relevant question, because when you write your book how are you supposed to know who your readers will be?

 

[GeekDavid]

Lots of adults read YA. They also read children's books eg The Hobbit, Harry Potter. But this is a relevant question, because when you write your book how are you supposed to know who your readers will be?

I think you can only in general. That is, fantasy readers, sci-fi readers, mystery readers.

Beyond that, going into sub-genres, I think it's increasingly difficult to determine who your audience will be. Call it the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle of Books.

Even within a sub-genre, there are differences in books and therefore audiences. Take, for example, epic fantasy. I adored LotR and most of Eddings' fantasies, which could be classed as epic (each of Eddings' four series that I enjoyed takes the adventurers to most corners of a given continent). However, I could not and cannot stand Wheel of Time, one of the most popular epic fantasy series.

So, even if someone is writing for the "epic fantasy audience," there are things that will make some of that audience shy away (in my case it's Rand's seemingly endless whining).

 

[Ruby]

I happen to like several things labeled as "YA."

Does that make me childish? I'm fine with that. I think adults who lose their childlike sense of wonder are boring and stodgy.

I agree with you, GeekDavid, about this. The problem with writing for a publishing market, though, is that you're supposed to know what genre and age group you're writing for. I've participated in online writing conferences where you're asked to specify if your book is MG or YA and then what sub genre it is eg Fantasy, SF, crime, historical, adventure, comedy. Then you post it under one of these headings.All these categories are very restrictive. For example, if you're writing MG, I've been advised that your hero should not be as old as 16, but then it might not suit your plot to make him/her 12. Also, my WIP would fit into multi-genres. Does that mean no one would be interested in it?
I've talked to 10 year olds about what they read and they often read above their age, usually The Hunger Games and other YA fiction.

 

[Devor]

You find your audience through trial and error and experimentation, by asking the people who like your work more about them. That's all marketers would do - they would just do it sooner and with science.

If you're worried that your audience is small, well, it sounds like it might be. But there's two factors: The size of your audience, and your ability to saturate that audience. You make up for a tiny niche with quality and by being a bigger presence within that small group.

Depending on how much you want to invest in this project, it may or may not be worth it to you. Tossing it out there without support won't get you any sales. But you could look at ways to adjust the story to expand your audience. Does every character need to share those ideals? Could some of the adult content be implied instead of explicit? These are things to consider if you're going to commit to something for the long haul of the writing process.