The WordPress/JetPack writing prompt for today is:
How do you write what people actually want to read?
Oh man… This prompt steps into the middle of an ongoing, never-ending debate among the writing community: Should you write to market or write what you’d want to read?
I can only represent and advocate for one of these perspectives, write what you’d want to read. For the other perspective, look elsewhere.
My guiding light for this is George Lucas. Following his huge, very much unexpected success with a small film called Star Wars, he was asked how he knew there’s be an audience for this (the “write to market” question), and he replied that he didn’t but this was a story that he knew he’d enjoy watching, so he made it (the “write for yourself” approach).
Honestly, I can’t imagine writing something that I wouldn’t want to read or see. There just wouldn’t be any motivation for me to create it.
My problem is that while there may have been a time, back in my twenties or thirties, when I would have represented the market pretty well, now that I am decades past that, I may be long out of touch with the market.
The irony here is that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become a much better writer, but my potential audience – people who would want to read what I’d want to read – may also be dwindling.
By far my most popular story is called Last Breath Day. It’s about a young man whose lust for an older woman blinds him to danger. This story has been published in anthologies in both the UK and Australia, and was an episode of an American podcast.
It is not my best story.
Graceful Degradation is a far better story. But it’s about a widower who finds that expressing his grief puts him in conflict with the government.
Where Last Breath Day has the patina of being an adventure, Graceful Degradation is gloomy, and dystopian. Both come to their inevitable conclusions.
I once told a mentor that I’m jealous of Last Breath Day’s success, given that I don’t think it’s my best work.
But what it really represents is proof that I don’t necessarily know my audience. I apparently wrote a story that resonates with readers. And yet to me, it was a throw-away, something I wrote to get the idea out of my head so I could move on to ‘better’ things.
I have a similar contrast building in what will be the first two novels I release. Tau Ceti follows a mature space ship crew as they navigate horrific circumstances, often with little agency. The Deacon Carver Chronicles deals with a brash young man who hasn’t learned to filter his thoughts and emotions.
Completing and releasing Tau Ceti has been important to me, not only because I’ve invested so much time and effort into it, and learned so much along the way, but because it explores some deep ideas that have defined my adult life. It represents a benchmark in my personal journey. And one driving reason for writing it was the story it leads to, the second half of the epic, where I explore ideas around how religion challenges faith, as I’ve intended for decades.
The Deacon Carver Chronicles, on the other hand, is a fun story to tell: Star-crossed lovers fighting to preserve order in a society falling to anarchy. It isn’t without thematic depth but it’s just a much lighter story.
So, am I writing to audience? I’m writing to me. I’m an audience, maybe an audience of one. But I’ll live with that. And who knows, maybe there’s more of me than I think.
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If you’re interested in seeing what I’m talking about, there are a few paths you could go down.
Both Last Breath Day and Graceful Degradation are free to read for Kindle Unlimited users (Disclaimer: I make about 4¢ any time someone reads one). They’re also 99¢ for regular Amazon Kindle readers (I’d make about 35¢)
Both Tau Ceti and The Deacon Carver Chronicles have excerpts on this website:
- Tau Ceti (Chapter 1, Scene 1)
- The Deacon Carver Chronicles (Onboarding Deacon)