Do you ever try to figure out what your audience - rather than you - is gonna find most attractive?

[WeShallUnclench]

When coming up with characters specifically. Do you ever find yourself writing characters and behaviours and thinking, "I would find it most sexy to write that a certain way, but I think most of my readers would prefer something else"?

Say, you are into skinny boys, but you feel your story would do better if you made the guy a 50-year old body builder?

 

[lovecraft68]

No. Short of making sure I have the right category for the story, I don't worry behind that.

 

[mrs_mackenzie]

I don't think I spend any time trying to think about what the audience wants: after all, I want them to be interested in what I'm interested in. If they want something else, there's plenty of other stories out there.

I do, though, consider the general appeal of the story. So for example, I try to give my stories positive endings, include likeable characters, have the dialogue be light and so on. Just my personal preference so that writing is a fun experience. And I think those attributes 'do well' with the audience, or at least part of the audience.

 

[TheLobster]

It's enough of a headache to bear the dozen or so voices of my characters. I really don't need the hundreds and thousands of those from my audience!

 

[StillStunned]

The only times it really comes up, I think, is when I'm writing a character whose sexual preferences aren't my own. So imagining what a straight woman, or a gay man or woman might look for in a partner.

 

[SimonDoom]

I write with myself in mind as my reader, so I don't do this. My attitude is that if I write it my way the right audience will find its way to my stories.

 

[Voboy]

I write with myself in mind as my reader, so I don't do this. My attitude is that if I write it my way the right audience will find its way to my stories.

This.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

One of the advantages of writing on Lit is that the audience is pretty broad.
That said, I've considered things in terms of what category the story will fit in.

 

[Erozetta]

I am my audience.

 

[jehoram]

When coming up with characters specifically. Do you ever find yourself writing characters and behaviours and thinking, "I would find it most sexy to write that a certain way, but I think most of my readers would prefer something else"?

Nope.

 

[intim8]

When coming up with characters specifically. Do you ever find yourself writing characters and behaviours and thinking, "I would find it most sexy to write that a certain way, but I think most of my readers would prefer something else"?

Say, you are into skinny boys, but you feel your story would do better if you made the guy a 50-year old body builder?

No. I do make a point of writing with the audience in mind, but only in the sense of making sure things are clearly and evocatively communicated.

I don't write for a general audience, I write for my audience, whoever that might be. They are, by definition, those that enjoy what I write, who share at least some of my tastes. Maybe that's millions of people who just haven't found me yet, or maybe it's only the 214 followers I have and the 800 people who upvoted my last story. Either way, I can't really change it by making different writing choices. Any that don't like it are not my audience.

 

[onehitwanda]

No. I write what makes me feel at the time.

 

[Sappho_CGN]

Oh ... to get more readers you must simply write a story about a nymphomaniac mother xxx her son (s).

But as I am a mother and that fantasy is a nightmare and let me vomit, I decided to write stories I like and see how the readers react. As I do not sell the stories or make any other profit with it, it is not very important.

 

[intim8]

The only times it really comes up, I think, is when I'm writing a character whose sexual preferences aren't my own. So imagining what a straight woman, or a gay man or woman might look for in a partner.

I don't do that often, but when I do, it is less about the sex - because I can't relate to it - and more about the more universal human emotional aspects of it.

Though I have one scene on my slush pile involving a lesbian in a very emotional encounter with a guy, and if the story ever comes to fruition, I have considered seeking out advice in the sensitivity sense, to avoid offending people. And no, it is not the tired trope of a lesbian "just finding the right guy." Very much not that, almost the opposite.

 

[WhiteTailDarkTip]

I don’t write for an audience. I write (mostly) for myself. The only thing I occasionally fret about is category

 

[pink_silk_glove]

When coming up with characters specifically. Do you ever find yourself writing characters and behaviours and thinking, "I would find it most sexy to write that a certain way, but I think most of my readers would prefer something else"?

Say, you are into skinny boys, but you feel your story would do better if you made the guy a 50-year old body builder?

Not in a way just to please the audience but I do like to vary my characters which means from time to time I step out of my own personal preferences.

Funny that you should mention being into skinny boys as opposed to gym rats, which I am actually into lithe pretty boys with pretty hair and not really into gym rats, but in one of my stories I did just that. I made the male lead a stocky husky jock type with a crew cut just to vary my characters and not force my own ideals into every story.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

Oh ... to get more readers you must simply write a story about a nymphomaniac mother xxx her son (s).

Yup.

 

[Melody_Lightdraft2]

As an anthropomorphic mare, I'm pretty open minded.
Graphic owned by me. Artist MollyBolly88.

 

[Voboy]

As a rule, @Melody_Lightdraft2, most of the threads in the AH aren't all that visual. And many of us don't like AI very much.

Just a friendly tip.

 

[Melody_Lightdraft2]

As a rule, @Melody_Lightdraft2, most of the threads in the AH aren't all that visual. And many of us don't like AI very much.

Just a friendly tip.

Point taken, my own graphics are not AI. They are created by Daz3d software, the ones I purchased from other artists, deleted.

 

[Bamagan]

Not so much.
To paraphrase:
The audience is multiplicitous, varied, ever-changing, and constantly renewed. Writing for them is like writing for a many-headed monster, which, each time a nut is busted, sprouts a new nut even stranger and more finicky than before.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I do make effort, sometimes, not to add more kinks or activities to a story where they will put off some readers. Unless the characters demand it, I'll keep the anal sex in Anal category stories, not much kink outside BDSM, etc. But if it's true to the character who's story I'm telling, then it stays in.

 

[Britva415]

When coming up with characters specifically. Do you ever find yourself writing characters and behaviours and thinking, "I would find it most sexy to write that a certain way, but I think most of my readers would prefer something else"?

Say, you are into skinny boys, but you feel your story would do better if you made the guy a 50-year old body builder?

No

Do you?

 

[Abbafan]

Not really. When it comes to the physical things, my tastes are pretty conventional. And there seem to be plenty of readers with similar kinks to myself, told in a particular way, I guess you could say.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I do to some degree. I try and make my characters believable in the context of the plot. For example, I'm currently writing a romance/first time story for the winter comp. If one or both of my characters were totally hot, then no one would believe they were virgins. Other stories have sexy people, or older and frumpy - it's entirely plot driven.