Who do you write for?

[NotWise]

Are your stories aimed at a common audience, or do you have expectations for your readers?

 

[sr71plt]

I write what I write and hope an appropriate audience finds it. Beyond that I'm not writing for anyone requiring babysitting, anal retentive, clinical, has to like the characters, require a happy ending all of the time, or wants every story to be continued until long past when all of the characters are dead. But some of those types of readers are reading them and commenting on them, and I guess that's the way it's going to be.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I write for myself. I write what I would like to read. If others happen to like what I write all the better.

 

[PuckIt]

Interesting question.

I always kind of figured if I wanted readers to find what they want to find, I'd hand them an empty page and a pen.

Pretty much, I get an idea and type it up (usually one handed). Then, I read over it and hate it and delete it. But, when I try to write something else, I'll end up rehashing the same story. After about the seventh time I go through the same shit, I give up, check it for spelling and submit it.

After I do that, I can finally forget about it and move on.

So, I guess you could say I write it for an audience of one. But, I figure I'm not a snowflake, so out there somewhere is probably someone else masochistic enough to enjoy reading it.

 

[Hypoxia]

A couple threads on essentially this question are now active.

The answer: LIT authors aren't paid. We may think we write for audiences or practice or whatever, but we really write only for our own self-gratification. If readers respond positively, we're happy. If we like what we write, we're happy. If we clear our emotional logjams, we're happy.

If we're approached by commercial publishers wanting and willing to pay for our work, we're even happier. But that's vanishingly rare. We may rationalize, but really, we write for ourselves.

Sure, we may aim for targeted audiences. But the only rewards and punishments are verbal. Fuck-em if they can't take it.

 

[Handley_Page]

I write for myself. I write what I would like to read. If others happen to like what I write all the better.

I quite agree

 

[SimonDoom]

I think my idea of a target audience is evolving. So I might give an answer six months from now different from what I would say now.

I think I try to write for a fairly broad audience, but one that shares some of my reading habits and preferences. My imagined reader is open-minded, has a taste for irreverence and whimsy, and is willing somewhat to stretch the bounds of his or her own fetishes and kinks to peer into and spend a little time with mine.

 

[rescatooor]

I was one of those children whose parents never told them bedtime stories. Hence I liked to read more than my sibling did, and I was telling myself stories all the time as well. So maybe in that sense I do write for myself.

Of course, I begun writing erotica (recently) because I had trouble finding stories that appealed to me. I wanted flaws in love interests, I wanted plenty of details and I felt those qualities were often absent within the genre. So I like to write with the intention of at least trying to fix that issue and maybe find likeminded people whose favourite lists I can then scroll for reading material.

But I do consider a wide audience as well. Lately I wrote a Lesbian story despite knowing little of the sex that's involved and it did quite alright. I think I could write almost any category in a matter that would please me as well as those with special interest in those categories and I will aim for that. But I'll first try to master what I know.

 

[oneaboveall23]

Honestly, I began writing to get back at someone.

A long time ago, I became friendly with a writer after reading his stories on a Tripod website. His stories had inadvertently touched on a lot of things that I also liked. I also liked that he followed a particular theme, but combined it with a bunch of stuff he liked. We corresponded for awhile and exchanged some stories.

Of course, things started to get weird. He stopped responding to my emails and I figured I wouldn't hear from him again. About a year later, I got an email from a woman on the web page. We chatted. I watched for different signs that (in my mind) convinced me that I was actually dealing with a woman and began to exchange stories. It turned out to be him pretending to be a woman in an attempt to get me to write so he could change them and post them on different boards.

I waited about a year and began to write my own stories and post them on Yahoo Groups (I told you this was back in the day). I got a lot of positive reactions and began to think that maybe I had a talent for it. I did this for awhile, but I haven't written anything in a long time. I've been considering it, however.

 

[TxRad]

Who do I write for? Here on Lit is mostly for myself and to give my plot bunnies a home. The cages in my office runnith over. Not to mention getting all those voices out of my head.

In mainstream, I started out writing to a theme that the publisher wanted stuff for. That was three novels. Next i did the same for another theme. Another trilogy in a whole different category. Then came a couple of books in the young adult category, which I find easy to write. Short for a novel and to a point that has a moral. Now I'm doing a ten book series that are standalone stories with an overall arc.

The first is for fun. The second is a J.O.B. but still fun if things go well, which they are, I'm glad to say.

 

[_Lynn_]

I don't think about any specific audience when I write but the end results are pieces I would choose as a reader.

 

[oggbashan]

I write for my Muses who can get very insistent sometimes.

Audience? I had a fetish following on Yahoo Adult Groups before I came to Literotica 15 years ago, but Yahoo altered the groups and effectively killed them. Out of 20 or so adult groups that I used to write for, none are still active and most are defunct. I still write fetish for the few who followed me to Literotica but now I'm more interested in challenging myself than in thinking about a potential audience.

 

[jehoram]

I write for me. But I post it here for others, because I like to read stories as well as write them, and it's a form of paying back.

 

[Hypoxia]

Atop the low barrister bookcases across the room from my lounging / working couch are a couple of painted carved winged angels (from Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico IIRC), one playing a saxophone, the other a concertina. Both have bright eyes and ruby lips. When I resume writing, I'll write for them: a visible but uncritical audience.

Maybe if I branch into Erotic Horror, I'll have to move to another room, and write for the monster+demon masks hanging on that wall.