The great debate...

Do you write for your audience or write for yourself?

Ok, so maybe this isn't the biggest debate out there but it's one that's been playing on my mind most since writer's block set in... along with a cold I just can't shake (ah the joys of parenting a small human that frequents the cesspit of infections that is your average day nursery).

I can't help but feel this is why so many authors start to feel formulaic over time.

Everything I read these days seem to emphasise the importance of knowing your audience and making sure you're writing for them. Agents say it. Publishers say it. And whilst I do agree with the sentiment to a degree (cause hey, ultimately, if no one's interested in what you have to say, your writing will stay hidden within the depths of your laptop regardless of how hard you tweet you're #amquerying) I can’t help but think that this attitude is why so many of my favourite authors are starting to feel a jot formulaic.

I read a much anticipated book from one of my favourite authors recently that had just this tang. It was a rainy Tuesday morning and I'd been steadfastly avoiding doing anything resembling real writing for the past hour when I decided to try one of my tried and tested writer's block fixes: read something else.

Ok, fine, really I'd just found out that said author’s latest title had been released months ago and as a mainly-SAHM to an energetic toddler I'm way behind on reading for pleasure. Amazon Kindle pre-order is a true friend.

Usually I devour anything that comes out of this series in mere hours, so I figured I could get through it in time to try to drag a few hundred words out of myself before legging it to the aforementioned cesspit for the pickup. Over a month later, however, I'm still only about 60% through the book and I doubt I’ll go back for the rest. Now some of this might be down to the fact that as a writer’s block aid it did work and I stopped reading a couple of times to add a few paragraphs to something I was working on.

I could tell the female protagonist was just a mix of two others earlier in the same series.

But I think a lot of it is down to the formulaic nature of the story. Perhaps it's the curse of a true fan, but I could tell the female protagonist was just a mash up of two others earlier in the same series. The male lead was a blatant rip off of a character in a different series – down to accent, appearance and unique choice of swear words. The author had even reused catch phrases that had seemed so hilarious and inspired when I’d first read them 4 books earlier, but fell short when repeated.

As I flipped the pages (electronically, of course) I knew exactly where the story was going – and worse still, I couldn't be bothered to join along for the ride. As an avid reader and someone who loves to reread favourites over and over, this was an odd experience for me.

Rightly or wrongly, I fear the advice of writing for your audience is partly to blame – because as a society we’ve become so desperate to put people in boxes (no doubt so social media companies can sell our data to someone else) writing is becoming stale.

Now obviously I understand that to a degree you have to have an idea of who you’re aiming your story at. I know for myself, things I found interesting as a teenager weren’t so absorbing in my twenties and aren’t so stimulating in my thirties – but then again some things are, and said things are not necessarily what my contemporaries (who on paper are ‘just like me’) enjoy.

Plug this zany female lead in here, and that dark arrogant arse there… It’s making books boring.

Books from beloved authors are starting to feel like someone is creating them using a child’s building blocks – plug this zany female lead in here, insert that arrogant arse there… because that’s what the audience responded well to before. But I don’t think it works. It’s making books boring. To read and to write.

So I guess what this writer is saying is: instead of writing for ‘the audience’, can’t we just write for ourselves, at least sometimes?

Yes, we have to tailor what we write… but surely not so much that we hamper our creative abilities as writers and ultimately lose something beautiful in the deal. Lately, it is this worry of whether or not I am appropriately writing for my audience that has been slowing me down.

So I’ve decided to just write my story – and see where it ends up.

#amwriting