To have a market or not to have a market

When you write, do you always have a particular audience in mind? I tend to write in a very literary style, so my work would probably appeal to a more contemporary or sophisticated market, but I don't necessary keep this at the back of my head; I simply write and look for an audience later.

What do you think?

I usually write for teens, as I am a teen myself. I haven't read many adult books, so I'm not used to the style, and, honestly, it doesn't appeal to me at the moment. Sure, I read advanced teen books, but the subjects change so drastically when you get to adult books.

Of course, if it's for school I'll watch what I say. No swears or bad topics, not too much depressing stuff, etc.

~JFW1415

When it comes to really good teen books, I think the only difference between them and books marketed to adults should be the age of your main character. The exception would be if you're writing for teens who are behind in their reading or you're trying to encourage them to read.

As for having an actual market, which is a lot more than your age group, I think it's better to decide that once you're done writing it. You do have to have a market in mind when you're selling it, but we're writers first, not sales people.

Rei wrote:When it comes to really good teen books, I think the only difference between them and books marketed to adults should be the age of your main character. The exception would be if you're writing for teens who are behind in their reading or you're trying to encourage them to read.

*Nods* I think I'm a bit uneducated about this. My mom reads historical novels, and I don't, so I see a huge difference. Now that I think about it, my aunt's books do have similar themes.

~JFW1415

I don't have much aim in a direct audience, but if you want to write what you read most, then keep your general likes/dislikes in mind.

I write for children and teenagers, depending on the story and who's in it and where I want it to go. Adult books? No way, not yet at least.

[quote]
As for having an actual market, which is a lot more than your age group, I think it's better to decide that once you're done writing it. You do have to have a market in mind when you're selling it, but we're writers first, not sales people.

I agree with this. Isn't being a salesperson's what an agent's for?

I can't stand the thought of writing teen books. Adult-level drama without the actual cause? Ugh...

First of all, what the hell is a literary style? There's no styles more literary than others. Style is just the certain universe of words you use for a certain type of story. If you're writing fantasy, you have a certain style. If you're writing romance, you have a certain style. You may like to believe that your writing will appeal a more "sophisticated" audience, but in the end, the story appeals whomever wants to read the story. People don't browse through books in libraries, see how they're written. No. They see the blurb in the back, then flick through the pages. They take it. If they like it, good. If they don't, fine. You don't have to write to appeal a specific group of people. You have to write for the story. Does your story need tons of dialogue? Okey-Dokey. Does your story need upside down post-modernist bullsh*t prose? Fine. If you're writing something for teens, if you're writing something for adults, you're just limiting yourself for no reason. Don't think about the market. Experiments, even the ones that fail terribly, are at least, interesting. I'm not gonna say write for youself only. That would be silly. If I wrote for myself I would have a thousand lesbian Final Fantasy fanfictions written up. What you have to do is write something you would read. Something could actually see youself picking up from a bookstore, and reading-- not just skimming through in your computer, which is why the lesbian FF story didn't fly.

Why do you think most books that are tailored specifically for teenagers or for kids are usually pretty terrible? Because these guys, these writers, they have to give the publishing house like twenty a year, and it's more like mass-producing than actual writing. For a book to be good you don't have to be thinking about how many sequels and spin-offs you can make from this, you have to think, well, what is the best possible way to tell this story?

Marketing? Target audience? We write books. Not music.

Literary fiction = placing compelling character development above a compelling plot.

Commercial fiction = the opposite.

See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_fiction

Yeah, I'm aware of the labels. But that's kind of the point, isn't it? Who gets to say what's "literary" fiction and what's "commercial" fiction? Is Irvine Welsh's multiple-narrator-phonetically-written-nothing-really-happens prose more relevant and important than Elmore Leonard's simply-written-dialogue-heavy-ridiculously-fun novels? Like I said, it all depends on what story you want to tell. You can't just decide one day: "Hey, I think I'm gonna focus just on character driven dramas." No. I mean, you can, but that's just limiting yourself.

Bob Dylan applies here.

See, Bobby started out as a folk-singer, used to go out on the stage with nothing but his guitar and his harmonica and his protest songs. People liked that. Thought of him as a messiah, the spokesman of a generation. But Bob, you see, he had too many ideas, too many things he wanted to do. So one day he writes a song that has nothing to do with politics. And one day he decides to try out an electric guitar, maybe bring a band over to play with him. And now he's singing about hobos getting high instead of the times and how they're a-changing. People started to boo him. They didn't like that he was doing something else. But the thing is, he couldn't just write about a certain number of topics forever. He'd gone crazy. You can't force youself to write a certain way, to appeal a certain number of people, to touch a certain number of topics. That's punishing yourself for no reason.

So.

One day you write about this guy who leaves his family. And the next you write about soldiers invading Mars. Each one of these stories are told in a certain way. Each one of these stories is appropiate for a certain group of people, each of these stories either appeals the masses, or doesn't.

I won't argue with Wikipedia (who can?) but I'm telling you, literary fiction and commercial fiction are completely arbitrary (is that the word?) terms. I mean, you can ask people if they have a market, and they can probably answer the question, but who's to say they'll have a market tomorrow? Mario Vargas Llosa writes some of the most impenetrable novels ("La Casa Verde", which is actually one of my favourite books ever) and some of the easiest to read ("Pantaleón y las Visitadoras" which is a comedy about the army and a squad of prostitutes). He doesn't limit himself to just one type of book. Neither should you.

But we got us a little debate going on here. Keep it up.

EDIT: Actually, I read the wikiarticle and find it quite silly. There's something in there that I like though, so I'll wikiquote it--

On a recent broadcast of The Charlie Rose Show, John Updike stated that he felt this term, when applied to his work, greatly limited him and his expectations of what might come of his writing, and so does not really like it. He said that all his works are literary simply because "they deal with words."

Great. Now can we get back on topic? If you have any other bones of contention, please PM.

Thanks.

When I write stories, I try to write them so that they are somewhat universally understandable. What I mean by that is even if you don't like horror, which I have to say a good portion of my stories are, you'll still understand everything going on, rather than become enmuddled in things that usually only horror aficionados would understand or pick up on.

As far as genre or style, mine are often fantasy/horror/magical realism all made into one unholy conglomeration. I don't usually write for an age group, as I said before, I like stories that are nearly universal.

First of all, what the hell is a literary style? There's no styles more literary than others.

Egads! You don't believe in literary style? Sure, all styles are equally literary, but seriously, different styles are different. Hence, styles.

Like I said before, I write for children&teens in the adventure/fantasy genre, depending on the story idea. I mean, I am in that age group, so why shouldn't I write in it?

I write for people like myself, really, but I would aim it more at 14-18 because I'm more mature than most people my age.