I've been thinking about what Linda posted about your "ideal reader." Do you have an ideal reader in your head? What else would they like to read if they enjoyed your work?
My ideal reader... Hmmm. Well I guess it would be some of the people who are in my reading group. They enjoy mysteries but they are not hard and fast about any particular type. It doesn't have to be cozy, historical, hard crime etc... They don't mind a little romance in with them mystery. I would generally say my reader is female, though I've had a couple of male readers (most especially my husband who is quite attached to some of the characters) I think my ideal reader is me! And I really do like to go back and read my own stuff for entertainment. I think that someone who really loves cozies might find my stuff to hard and someone who really digs procedurals would find it too soft.
A big difference netween me now and me years ago is now I always write thinking of an audience. For many years, I mostly wrote a journal, and I didn't imagine anyone else reading it. So my only reader was me.
The journal writing I do now is of 2 varieties. The first is notes about a fiction piece in progress. The second is fairly short entries about what's going on in my life. If I find myself writing about something at more length, I keep going and call it an essay.
So if I'm always thinking of an audience, who are they? Well, there's the readers of the 3 magazines I read every month, Analog, Asimov's and Apex. Plus I think of a larger, more amorphous audience. I think a lot of people, women especially, like to read about feelings and experiences that make them say "oh yes, I know just what that's like." I've posted about this before, about "I can totally relate to that." And about how this feeling can occur while reading many kinds of books. I think of sci-fi fans, and horror too. I don't think I'm exactly a horror writer but it seems like there's often a horror element in stuff I write. I guess I'd like to write something that appeals to both sci-fi fans and people who don't normally read sci-fi. One of Sheila Williams recent editorials mentioned some mainstream prizes sci-fi stories that had originally appeared in Asimov's had won, as evidence that sci-fi is gaining mainstream appeal.
So I don't know who they are, I just hope they're out there and I can give them a chance to read my work.
I think perhaps the problem I've always had belonging to writing groups and taking writing workshops is that often the material seems to be written with no audience in mind. I remember a professor who was conducting a workshop at the community college I started at before going to BGSU, saying derisively that something I'd written (actually a funny fantasy story) sounded like a sitcom. I replied that it was supposed to be a sitcom and he went into this long monolgoue about artistic integrity and how no one should write sitcoms because they cheapened society. He had written a screenplay about some obscure 18th century writer whose name escapes me (And he must be obscure because I remember everything) that he had high hopes of getting published one day. And he got the group who had originally laughed out loud at my story to turn on me. So, I'm still waiting for that movie. But I did turn the professor into a psycho with a similar obsession who nearly ruined the main character in my mystery stories wedding. (HA, I win!) My story was about an insurance investigator who works for a company that insures supernatural beings (Casualty for your portal to another dimension, disability should you lose your magic powers) Everyone ended up a tea party with Ameila Earhart and Edgar Allan Poe and a talking cat.
WHOA! I MUST read that one! Is it a novel? I think a short story or novella about an insurance investigator who works for a company that insures supernatural beings would be great for any number of magazines, including Asimov's, even though their Writer's Market entry says they don't do horror. Last fall they published a story about a zoo for ghosts. A novel about said insurance investigator sounds very marketable to me.
I can see how that professor might turn you off writing classes permanently!
Also reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask you. Since you already write for television, and come up with all these great stories, do you ever think about writing them in teleplay form and marketing them that way?
I have tons of stuff that I think would make good TV. I actually have a stack of TV ideas or at least concepts. I just don't know (and I know this sounds incredibly conceited since I don't have any offers for anything) know if I want to give up the kind of control you have to with television. I suppose I could just float out the stuff I don't really love and save the good stuff for when I'm powerful. My current idea for a sitcom "Grandma Tiffany" about an attractive 40 year old woman who finds out she's going to become a grandma and goes just a little nuts.
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My ideal reader... Hmmm. Well I guess it would be some of the people who are in my reading group. They enjoy mysteries but they are not hard and fast about any particular type. It doesn't have to be cozy, historical, hard crime etc... They don't mind a little romance in with them mystery. I would generally say my reader is female, though I've had a couple of male readers (most especially my husband who is quite attached to some of the characters) I think my ideal reader is me! And I really do like to go back and read my own stuff for entertainment. I think that someone who really loves cozies might find my stuff to hard and someone who really digs procedurals would find it too soft.
A big difference netween me now and me years ago is now I always write thinking of an audience. For many years, I mostly wrote a journal, and I didn't imagine anyone else reading it. So my only reader was me.
The journal writing I do now is of 2 varieties. The first is notes about a fiction piece in progress. The second is fairly short entries about what's going on in my life. If I find myself writing about something at more length, I keep going and call it an essay.
So if I'm always thinking of an audience, who are they? Well, there's the readers of the 3 magazines I read every month, Analog, Asimov's and Apex. Plus I think of a larger, more amorphous audience. I think a lot of people, women especially, like to read about feelings and experiences that make them say "oh yes, I know just what that's like." I've posted about this before, about "I can totally relate to that." And about how this feeling can occur while reading many kinds of books. I think of sci-fi fans, and horror too. I don't think I'm exactly a horror writer but it seems like there's often a horror element in stuff I write. I guess I'd like to write something that appeals to both sci-fi fans and people who don't normally read sci-fi. One of Sheila Williams recent editorials mentioned some mainstream prizes sci-fi stories that had originally appeared in Asimov's had won, as evidence that sci-fi is gaining mainstream appeal.
So I don't know who they are, I just hope they're out there and I can give them a chance to read my work.
I think perhaps the problem I've always had belonging to writing groups and taking writing workshops is that often the material seems to be written with no audience in mind. I remember a professor who was conducting a workshop at the community college I started at before going to BGSU, saying derisively that something I'd written (actually a funny fantasy story) sounded like a sitcom. I replied that it was supposed to be a sitcom and he went into this long monolgoue about artistic integrity and how no one should write sitcoms because they cheapened society. He had written a screenplay about some obscure 18th century writer whose name escapes me (And he must be obscure because I remember everything) that he had high hopes of getting published one day. And he got the group who had originally laughed out loud at my story to turn on me. So, I'm still waiting for that movie. But I did turn the professor into a psycho with a similar obsession who nearly ruined the main character in my mystery stories wedding. (HA, I win!) My story was about an insurance investigator who works for a company that insures supernatural beings (Casualty for your portal to another dimension, disability should you lose your magic powers) Everyone ended up a tea party with Ameila Earhart and Edgar Allan Poe and a talking cat.
WHOA! I MUST read that one! Is it a novel? I think a short story or novella about an insurance investigator who works for a company that insures supernatural beings would be great for any number of magazines, including Asimov's, even though their Writer's Market entry says they don't do horror. Last fall they published a story about a zoo for ghosts. A novel about said insurance investigator sounds very marketable to me.
I can see how that professor might turn you off writing classes permanently!
Also reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask you. Since you already write for television, and come up with all these great stories, do you ever think about writing them in teleplay form and marketing them that way?
I have tons of stuff that I think would make good TV. I actually have a stack of TV ideas or at least concepts. I just don't know (and I know this sounds incredibly conceited since I don't have any offers for anything) know if I want to give up the kind of control you have to with television. I suppose I could just float out the stuff I don't really love and save the good stuff for when I'm powerful.
My current idea for a sitcom "Grandma Tiffany" about an attractive 40 year old woman who finds out she's going to become a grandma and goes just a little nuts.
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