Writing for a larger audience vs small, private audience

[MasterAnimus]

While I enjoy the stories on Lit, the stories I have written have been for a private audience - people I've met here or out in the world. It could be expressing a fantasy, teasing someone out of their shell, or being suggestive of desires. Even when plots have been not so realistic, I have been able to take a lot more artistic license when writing for someone than a much larger audience on Lit. And because of which, stories have been grander, with slow burn many a times. Also, the fact that the person reading it is somehow in the plot has made for a great turn-on, both while writing it and while awaiting the review.

Curious if others have had this and how they were able to get over this to write "for the masses." I am not shy to share stories nor am I afraid of critique. Any tips would be helpful. Start small? etc.

 

[TheRedLantern]

Yes, this is 100% what I did. Started off writing short flash fiction because I wanted complete control over the scene. Shared it with a few people on Reddit and f-list. Came here, had a panic attack, and posted a similar thread several weeks ago.

What I did was to pick my niche, which is not a large one, and focus entirely on it.

I also found that I really wanted to tone things down. When you write for a tiny audience that you hand-select, you trust that they're going to read things the way you intended, but here on Lit when you go from 15 readers to 15,000 readers, you don't have that trust. Eventually I will get better at saying what I want to say, but for now I dialed some of the more potentially misunderstood sections of my work from an 8 or a 9 down to a 1 or a 2. The people who are listening for the messages I'm sending are, I believe, hearing them, and my voice will get louder as my confidence grows. I suspect some of the more senior members would challenge that strategy, but I picked my path and it's working for me.

 

[NotWise]

I don't know if this is entirely comparable, but I wrote for an audience of one before posting anything to Lit. I wrote for the joy of writing. When I published to Lit, I made sure that I complied with the site's content guidelines, and that was the only change I made.

Aside from complying with the guidelines, if or when you start publishing stories here you need to make sure your stories are posted to the right category. There's an audience for anything you can publish.

 

[StillStunned]

I started writing for my wife and never intended to publish anything. But even so, I tried to make my stories complete works that could be read by anybody.

Now it's more the other way around. I write to publish here, but I often consider what my wife would like and add small details for her enjoyment.

First and foremost, though, I write for myself: I write what I want, how I want. If people read it, fine. If they enjoy it, even better. But I'm not going to refrain from writing a 2P stream of consciousness cyberpunk story littered with Springsteen references because I doubt more than three people will ever read more than two paragraphs.

 

[SouthernCrossfire]

I write stories that I would want to read, but I wrote for nearly 20 years on several other sites before migrating to Literotica and switching from the traditional fade-to-black suggestive scenes to something more erotic. My reason for doing so was basically the opportunity to attract more readers in comparison to my former sites. While exaggerated, Marc's tale in "A Matter of Trust," that he could get more readers in four hours on the erotic site in the story that he had in ten years on other sites, isn't that far off.

 

[filthytrancendence]

I read a story for the purpose of review a few weeks back over in story feedback that was clearly written for a small audience in RL.

The thing was, the story was mostly very good. But they leaned on their known audience's knowledge of the setting in particular, and so to the broader audience, the scene setting was mostly a proper noun dump. It wouldn't have taken much revision to make it significantly better for a wider audience.

To bring this back to your question, I don't think there's much of a dichotomy between writing for a private audience and a wider audience. The stories you've written for a private audience would probably resonate with a wider audience if you take the time to go back through it and remove any of the crutches you knew you could use because of your shared history with the private audience. Just ask yourself if a random person off the street would know what you're talking about at any given time, and if not, add some detail or remove it if it's an indulgence.

That's the only difference I can think of. When you know who you're writing for, you can take some shortcuts. When you're writing for a wider audience, you can't assume your reader knows much of anything about people/places unless you explain them.

 

[Britva415]

I have been able to take a lot more artistic license when writing for someone than a much larger audience on Lit

How so? What stops you from just employing as much license as you want, for Lit?