~~audience shock.
Nov. 5th, 2002 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkai keep realizing obvious things all the time. i don't know what's with me, really. mostly, besides just audience receptivity affecting their enjoyment, i think -having- an audience is really affecting -me-.
now, the weird thing is, that's not necessarily a bad thing. in fact, it's probably a good thing. in writing workshops they say, "well, you write for your audience". so if they don't understand what the hell you're doing, they're probably just not your intended audience. thing is, i never really used to consider that concept at all. i just wrote completely not just -for- myself, but -to- myself. i referenced things only i would realize the source of, had in-jokes mostly with myself, and so on. i've done this for most of my writing life, which is to say since i learned how to put words together enough to form semi-complex sentences in second grade.
now, in the hp fandom, we're all here, we all know each other, because jk rowling wrote for a (wide) audience. she says she wrote for herself, but obviously her self is much more in tune with 11-year-old girls than i really want to contemplate. i realize it's sort of "off" to say i want to be popular (especially as popular as jkr)-- and i don't, anyway. but what fascinates me is the idea of being widely read & understood. who doesn't want that? i want to communicate with people. i want to be read-- not for popularity, but just to ease the incredible isolation that writing to myself and talking to myself and thinking to myself all the time produces.
i wrote the h/r/h fic for an audience of one. not really consciously in -style- or too much even the -content-, but it was enough. i was writing for a type of envisioned reader, and it had the intended result. even if no one else liked it as much, the person i wrote it for did, and i think that's a success. when i wrote![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ashkitty's fic, while i wrote it with ashura's guidelines in mind, they were more generally popular types of things, so i was inadvertently actually writing for a larger audience. and there's a definite satisfaction in that.
while i don't think i can really -think- like my intended audience or really figure out what they want to hear (so -that's- not a problem), i think being aware of a listener and thus gearing your story towards a certain -direction- is certainly ok, and has been done for ages, by all manner of traditional storytellers. you tell the story your audience wants to hear while still imparting your own spirit into it-- kind of slipping it in. i couldn't -not- do that, anyway.
so i guess i'm saying maybe it's a good thing, something that can make one grow as a writer. not telling people what they want to hear, no, that's just simplistic. but rather, -hearing- them, considering them, considering their minds and their modes of understanding and their "buttons", even. you don't have to then go and bluntly -push- those buttons, but i think knowing them would inform your writing in a positive way. i mean, if i -don't- think about my audience i end up writing things that barely -anyone- appreciates besides their pretty language. i'm just weird like that.
while i don't even pretend i can be jkr and be accessible by all and sundry, it's a feel-good feeling, most definitely, being accessible by people who don't think on exactly my frequency, at least. it's like being able to play at more than one key. i love the feeling of being able to tailor something to fit multiple sizes of mind, so to speak. while this may be an obvious ability others (like jkr?) take for granted, for me it's not so much of an effort as a conscious decision i can make.
i've written this entirely from the first-person because this mostly applies to me, and i'm not about to go around saying that it's "better" to write with an audience in mind, because obviously it isn't. but it's not necessarily worse, is what occurs to me. i mean-- fanfic by definition is written with an audience in mind-- other fans. i think that in itself has helped me focus (focus is a problem for me-- er-- too much of it, usually). but it's a wider focus that i want. it would be cool to be understood by someone who's not an overly-intellectual most-likely-female fantasy-fan and slasher. though that is already improvement, for me anyway :D
~~
P.S. *laughs*
i know i made this list of fanfic cliches and typical plotlines for h/d fic and so on... but... but-- oh gahd, i have -nothing- on this.lasultrix and hautemonde bedazzle me with their brilliance ^^
now, the weird thing is, that's not necessarily a bad thing. in fact, it's probably a good thing. in writing workshops they say, "well, you write for your audience". so if they don't understand what the hell you're doing, they're probably just not your intended audience. thing is, i never really used to consider that concept at all. i just wrote completely not just -for- myself, but -to- myself. i referenced things only i would realize the source of, had in-jokes mostly with myself, and so on. i've done this for most of my writing life, which is to say since i learned how to put words together enough to form semi-complex sentences in second grade.
now, in the hp fandom, we're all here, we all know each other, because jk rowling wrote for a (wide) audience. she says she wrote for herself, but obviously her self is much more in tune with 11-year-old girls than i really want to contemplate. i realize it's sort of "off" to say i want to be popular (especially as popular as jkr)-- and i don't, anyway. but what fascinates me is the idea of being widely read & understood. who doesn't want that? i want to communicate with people. i want to be read-- not for popularity, but just to ease the incredible isolation that writing to myself and talking to myself and thinking to myself all the time produces.
i wrote the h/r/h fic for an audience of one. not really consciously in -style- or too much even the -content-, but it was enough. i was writing for a type of envisioned reader, and it had the intended result. even if no one else liked it as much, the person i wrote it for did, and i think that's a success. when i wrote
ashkitty's fic, while i wrote it with ashura's guidelines in mind, they were more generally popular types of things, so i was inadvertently actually writing for a larger audience. and there's a definite satisfaction in that. while i don't think i can really -think- like my intended audience or really figure out what they want to hear (so -that's- not a problem), i think being aware of a listener and thus gearing your story towards a certain -direction- is certainly ok, and has been done for ages, by all manner of traditional storytellers. you tell the story your audience wants to hear while still imparting your own spirit into it-- kind of slipping it in. i couldn't -not- do that, anyway.
so i guess i'm saying maybe it's a good thing, something that can make one grow as a writer. not telling people what they want to hear, no, that's just simplistic. but rather, -hearing- them, considering them, considering their minds and their modes of understanding and their "buttons", even. you don't have to then go and bluntly -push- those buttons, but i think knowing them would inform your writing in a positive way. i mean, if i -don't- think about my audience i end up writing things that barely -anyone- appreciates besides their pretty language. i'm just weird like that.
while i don't even pretend i can be jkr and be accessible by all and sundry, it's a feel-good feeling, most definitely, being accessible by people who don't think on exactly my frequency, at least. it's like being able to play at more than one key. i love the feeling of being able to tailor something to fit multiple sizes of mind, so to speak. while this may be an obvious ability others (like jkr?) take for granted, for me it's not so much of an effort as a conscious decision i can make.
i've written this entirely from the first-person because this mostly applies to me, and i'm not about to go around saying that it's "better" to write with an audience in mind, because obviously it isn't. but it's not necessarily worse, is what occurs to me. i mean-- fanfic by definition is written with an audience in mind-- other fans. i think that in itself has helped me focus (focus is a problem for me-- er-- too much of it, usually). but it's a wider focus that i want. it would be cool to be understood by someone who's not an overly-intellectual most-likely-female fantasy-fan and slasher. though that is already improvement, for me anyway :D
~~
P.S. *laughs*
i know i made this list of fanfic cliches and typical plotlines for h/d fic and so on... but... but-- oh gahd, i have -nothing- on this.
lasultrix and hautemonde bedazzle me with their brilliance ^^
