Genre and Audience

Genre and audience is a funny one because you're not supposed to think about it when you're writing your first draft. Silence the voices in your head that represent readers and editors. Let the creative side spew out anything and everything. But when you get to your next drafts, you have to start to leave that little window open in your brain to let the voices seep in.

Who is this story for?

The most obvious thing to look at first is age group. Different age group books have different rules. Are you writing for children? Middle grade? Young adult (adolescent)? Adult? In general, your vocabulary (word size, swearing, etc.) should reflect what age you're writing for.

For example, a YA (young adult) book typically just has one storyline, a protagonist who is young adult, and an ending that supplies at least a little bit of hope (for psychological reasons).

However, I like what Chekhov has to say about the matter: "Don’t write for children. Choose carefully for children from what has been written for adults."

Age is just one factor. There is also culture. If you're writing a story about India, think carefully who you intend to sell the book to. If it's to people living in India or who have lived in India, much detail about the culture is implied. If you're trying to sell it to the general American public, you might need to explain some objects or customs that are unfamiliar to many Americans.

And then there's genre.

So, say you're writing a science fiction novel. How accessible do you want it to be for people who don't read science fiction? Or is it purely genre fiction that will follow all the rules of science fiction because, let's face it, sci-fi readers are the ones who will be picking up your book anyway.

Personally, I like to hit some of the cross-genre stuff, which is dangerous because cross-genre can be harder to sell. Yes, it now fits two categories of people, so you'll in theory get twice as many people interested, but it's also not purely one genre or the other, so you'll lose out on the purist market.

Click here for a decent rant about the fantasy genre.


Metafiction

Metafiction is fiction about fiction. It can be writing about somebody writing, but it can also be a story that is self aware.

For example, in my book, two characters eat from the Tree of Knowledge, so they see all the truths of the universe, including the fact that they are characters in a fiction novel. This element was in the first draft. I deleted it in the second because I was afraid it was contrived. It worked its way back in in the third draft. I feared what The Editor would say about it. There must be a reason that I don't see metafiction in very many novels these days. Plus, I worried it was a little confusing. Surprisingly, this was one of the couple story elements that she really liked. Metafiction lives on!

Good example of published metafiction (I've seen it in lots of short stories, too) is "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" by Tom Stoppard. It's a play as well as a movie starring Tim Roth and Gary Oldman.