The Audience Business

By: Deb Mcleod

5:19 am - Starbucks

I didn't sleep much last night. Was waiting for the alarm to go off so I could brainstorm the resurrection of my reincarnation series. Today is day one of my journey to... I don't know what to call it. And I need a name for what I'm doing and where I'm going.

My journey to my writing career? My journey to fame, fortune, and full-time writing?

It's a journey to somewhere where my novels are published and being read. For the first time I can see where I'll end up.

While I may not know what to call this revelation and new path for my work, I do know what it isn't. It's not the way I was taught to write. In academia, you seek the truths inside yourself and fashion stories around your deepest fears and thoughts. Your work is you and you are your work.

In the beginning I held the greats and their worlds in my sights - females, when I could find them. I loved Virginia Woolf's brain and sought to see the world through the inner thought - writing dry sorts of stories with analytical overtones and emotion held at a distance. Could I write like a dead, white, English woman? I didn't seem to have the right pedigree. I could see it waft up the family tree on my father's side, but I was always a visitor to the names and connections to old money and old power that had fizzled out by the time my father married my mother, the daughter of an Italian immigrant.

In college, my vision was opened by finding the maternal voice in Toni Morrison, finding Zora Neal Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God," Alice Walker, Bobbie Ann Mason and her white trailer trash stories and others. They were writing the people. They were writing the women. They were writing me and I wanted to be one of them.

The problem with that was twofold. It was a time of new discovery of the female voice, so lots of us were writing similar stories and the women's story began to have a life of its own in the trends that came in and out of publisher popularity. At the time I wrote too slow to stay ahead of the curve.

But I was taught that good writing always finds a home. No matter what. That was when there were more than 90? large, reputable publishing houses that decided what America wanted to read. Now there are five big publishing houses and they're playing catch up to what readers are saying America wants to read.

The second problem was that I was writing Italian, not African American, not Asian, or even more currently, not Indian, Iranian, Afghani or any of the other places in the Middle East whose voices readers are currently seeking out.

The Mafia sells Italian. There's a place on the shelf for that. In the traditional world, for women's fiction, apparently there's only room for a few books about Italian women -- a divorcee in Tuscany, who’s not Italian, by the way, and a divorcee eating her way through Rome on the way to prayer in India and love in Belize (or wherever). These are the two nods to my mother's culture, to the red blood that dilutes what little blue I carry in my veins.

"Paper Fish" Tina de Rosa's lyrical masterpiece in the tradition of the dead great greats has not been widely acknowledged, but it's brilliant and took years and years to find a home. And then only after a fight and only in Academia. I’ve studied it, written papers about it, tried to get book clubs excited by it. To no avail.

I was a successful creative writing student, educated in the ways of traditional writing to write the truths that were evident to my perspective of the world. And publishers didn't believe that there was a shelf to put me on. I am my writing and my writing is me. So I tried to write a commercial book - just something to self-publish and see what that's all about.

Four years later (I couldn’t help it!) I have a book that reflects my deepest truths and still has no place on the shelf. "Too creative, too different," senior editor at HarperCollins told me. "There's no audience for it. You’ll have to create one." 

I should thank her for firmly planting me in the self-publishing camp. But still I didn't quite learn the lesson. I was still coming from the writing first. And I wrote until reality hit once again. I had a good idea and I ran with it.

But I wrote a romance series whose Book One would sit on one shelf and Book Two would sit on another. It’s possible there would be crossover, but not likely. So I set it aside and began another romance series and this one had a shelf and could find a home.

But last week at a writing conference, something someone said triggered a reframe that might bring the first romance series onto one shelf instead of two and a place in the book world.

In a blog not long ago, Aaron Michael Ritchey said something to the effect of: “I'm out of the publishing business and into the audience-building business.” And I couldn't agree more.

I'm not going to try to sell to publishers or agents or their idea of what readers want. I'm going right to the readers. Audience building means knowing the shelves. Knowing the shelves means knowing the tropes and reader expectations of the books that live on their favorite shelves. It’s writing within a bit of a framework, perhaps pushing the boundaries and creating a new one.

For me, audience building means earning my way onto my own shelf.

 And today is day one.

About the Author: Deb McLeod, MFA, practices novel research immersion. For her novel, The Train to Pescara, Deb journeyed to Sardinia to study ancient goddess worship and spent time in the Abruzzi village her great-grandparents left in 1905. Her metaphysical knowledge for the Angel Thriller, The Julia Set, culminates from four years of studying and teaching meditation, clairvoyance and chakra healing. For more than fourteen years, Deb McLeod has been a creative writing coach helping other writers to embrace their passion and get their words on the page. For more, see www.debmcleod.com.

Monkeys Behaving Badly - Writer Versus Character Versus Audience

By Aaron Michael Ritchey

Something came up at my critique that completely caught my fascination. I was writing a scene in a short story where it’s apparent to the reader that my hero’s boss was actually Jack the Ripper. The hero of the story would never even consider that a possibility. But I was told that if the hero doesn’t make the same leap as the reader, it won’t be believable.

Are you with me, so far?

So as the writer, do I write the scene for the audience? Or do I write the scene for the character?

For all of my writing career, I chose my characters over my audience. I follow the characters in my books, I let them dictate to me how they react to the story I’ve plotted. I’m a pantser, but only up to a point. I know what needs to happen, and I whip characters when I need to, but I also honor their reality.

Should I?

One of my terrible habits that I need to break is writing only for myself. I write what I think is cool, what I want to read about, what I want to experience. Audience? What audience? I am an audience of one. I got a steely-cold lesson about this when I wrote a book for my daughter, without really keeping the audience in mind. You know what? She couldn’t read it. Not a bit. And she wasn’t too shy about telling me. Ouch.

So yes, if I want to continue to publish books, I need to consider the audience. Audience definitely trumps writer, I think. But what about audience versus character?

Ideally, sure, you’d have both. Characters that react like the reader expects and that the reader likes. But aren’t people cool who don’t always do as they’re told? Being human is part Divine wisdom, part Pride and Prejudice politeness, and part monkey, throwing poop. 

Flat characters bore me. Characters who know as much as the reader bore me. What I like? Complex, conflicted characters, struggling to be good, but choosing to be bad, then living with the consequences. Who is more interesting, Luke Skywalker or Han Solo?

What did I do in my Jack the Ripper story? I had the character think his boss might be a murderer, then reject the idea. I threw a bone to the reader. ‘Cause I’m a good little soldier.

But deep down, I think character trumps reader. Character and story - if you are true to those twin gods, I think the readers will tag along and be grateful for the truth.

About the Writer: YA Paranormal author Aaron Michael Ritchey has penned a dozen manuscripts in his 20 years as a writer. When he isn’t slapping around his muse, Aaron cycles to look fabulous, works in medical technologies, and keeps his family in silks and furs. His first novel, The Never Prayer, hit the streets on March 29, 2012.  Most recently, his work appears in the steampunk anthology The Penny Dread Tales Volume III.



Love Stinks - Write for the Market!

By Aaron Michael Ritchey

I am a Libra.  I see both sides of things.  I’m a scale, but not very balanced.  I generally tip back and forth between extremes.

One part of me says, only write what's popular, Aaron.  Make every character vanilla.  Choose safe paragraphs.  Don’t take chances.  If people want a Hollywood happy ending, give them one.  Don’t be difficult.  Sell out.  Sell out as much as possible, for as much as possible.

The other part of me wears black, smokes cigarettes, and reads Sartre.  It’s my art, dammit.  It’s my story.  It’s my characters, and they are bleak, broken, passive, but they are real.  They bleed.  And it might not all end happily, but there is wisdom in suffering.  Stay true to your vision, Aaron, and damn what anyone else thinks.  Forget your critique group.  What do they know?

So I’m conflicted.  A lot.  I probably make a terrible scale.  That’s it, I’m a failed Libra.

I think the ideal is to write the book of your heart in such a way as to make it marketable.  I’m kind of in love with Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat!  Part of his process suggests that we should think about our audience and the demographic appeal of our characters and our story.  I’ve failed at that.  Even the stuff I’ve written for the market, I really only considered about what I think is cool.  And, um, I’m not the mass market.  I’m a rebel, Dotty.  I’m different.

So I need to consider my audience, and I need to pry my mind open and keep it open.  I take my work to my critique group to improve it, and if I’m not willing to change a thing, I’m wasting everyone’s time.  Of course, some things people say I can disregard.  Not every piece of criticism is golden.  Some are just plain wrong.

I truly believe Stephenie Meyer wrote Twilight because it was the book of her heart, not because she was writing for the market.  And she was very successful.  And I think, though I don’t have any evidence, that Nicholas Sparks wrote The Notebook to appeal to the market.  He was very successful.  So in the end, no one really knows what is going to work and what isn’t.  There are no easy answers.

Write what you love.  Pay attention to the market, but don’t be a slave to it.  And when someone wants you to change your story, listen, but in the end, listen more to that innate genius that is inside us all.

Above all, love the book you are writing now.  Because you are putting your life into those words and pages.  Your very life.  The precious minutes of your existence. 

Probably not something to take lightly.

About the Writer:  YA Paranormal author Aaron Michael Ritchey has penned a dozen manuscripts in his 20 years as a writer. When he isn’t slapping around his muse, Aaron cycles to look fabulous, works in medical technologies, and keeps his family in silks and furs. His first novel, The Never Prayer, hit the streets on March 29, 2012.

Edward Cullen Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Twilight

By Aaron Michael Ritchey

I read Twilight after it first came out, way back in 2005.  People were saying it was going to be the next big thing, but dang, I had no idea how that could be.

I liked the book.  I liked the setting.  I liked how she handled the vampires, evolved to be sparkly and beautiful to make hunting so much easier.  Yet, I didn’t understand why that book, that story, became such a flashpoint.  A nice little love story set in Forks, Washington as a world-wide phenomenon?  Triple-platinum bestseller?  Really?

Some people hated it, and I couldn’t understand that either.  Wasn’t much to love.  Wasn’t much to hate.  It was all so simple.  The characters were fine.  The story was fine.  The writing wasn’t awful.  It was functional. 

I didn’t become a Twihard until I watched all five movies this past November in one day, at the theater, surrounded by young girls, middle-aged women, and a few men comfortable enough in their masculinity that they could get a little teary at all the angst and romance.

Now I get it.  Stephenie Meyer is a genius.  Not because she was so innovative, no, it was because she made things so simple.  The writing, the story, the characters, it was all so simple.  And moving.

There is a disconnect at times between the writing community and the general audience.  Writers don’t read like normal readers because we aren’t normal readers.  We are writers.  We devour books, and then dissect the pieces.  How could that chapter be better?  How can I avoid the cliché there?  How can I use dialogue tags more creatively?  The general reader isn’t worrying about all that.  They want a story they can understand, that sweeps them off their feet, in a setting that seems real, and with characters they can identify with.  The general reader is very forgiving if the bones of the story speak to them.

Robert McKee of Story fame thinks story is all-powerful.  You can have iffy writing if the story is evocative, and I believe that.  Most people read fiction as an emotional experience, not a logical one.  And emotions are messy things.

The last Twilight movie, Breaking Dawn, Part II, ends with Edward and Bella in their meadow, gazing into each other’s eyes, in love, now, literally forever.  After thirteen hours of The Twilight Saga, I didn’t want to leave the theater.  I wanted to bask in their emotion, that perfect love we generally only experience in fiction.  Real love is messy and uncertain and takes work.  Bella and Edward’s perfect love is just plain perfect.  Sigh.

I want to write books that leave my readers feeling that sense of joy, wonder, and contentment.  The bad guys are all dead.  The troubles are behind our hero and his heroine, and the world makes sense.  That feeling, I believe, is more important than a perfectly balanced plot, or the depth of my characters, or my sentence variety.

Not that I’m saying I’m going to churn out first draft stuff and hope my story is good enough to hook readers.  No, I’m not going to do that.  But I do want to simplify my writing because I can make things so complicated so fast.  Ideally, my writing would be invisible—a simple doorway into the perfect fictive dream.  So, I’m going to focus on good, simple writing, a well-crafted story, and above all, emotional impact.  Perfect love.  Sigh.  Thank you, Stephenie Meyer, for giving us such a wonderful story.

About the Writer:  YA Paranormal author Aaron Michael Ritchey has penned a dozen manuscripts in his 20 years as a writer.  When he isn’t slapping around his muse, Aaron cycles to look fabulous, works in medical technologies, and keeps his family in silks and furs.  His first novel, The Never Prayer, hit the streets on March 29, 2012.