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Let's talk about imagined audience.
Ask me a question! Because I missed you.
* * *
So, recently a couple people have got me thinking about the concept of "imagined audience." Let me say first that I hope if you write, fanfic or original, you do it for yourself. It's great to get fb, praise, and a dialogue going with readers, but seriously if the writing itself doesn't please you, go do something else forgodsakes. Mmmkay, now that that's over with, what is this imagined audience? Well, I'm defining it as a specific person or group about whom you're thinking when you write, and whose fb makes you feel you've accomplished your goal.
Because that definition feels a. amorphous and r. really really wrong for some reason, let me give an example. Not to toot my own horn but toot toot, it's about the las fic I wrote, Ten Things That Pull Apart And One Thing That Holds Together. Now, I wrote this fic first and foremost because I love B/A, and what I love about it is the idea of "love overcoming all obstacles" ; despite the fact that that idea is cliched, a deep fanciful part of me really wants me to believe it's true. So I wrote a fic about obstacles to see whether I thought love could overcome them (for those of you who are curious, I'm unsure of the results. Half the time writing that fic, I thought: "B/A would never work." The other half I thought, "love is like oxygen love gives you wings all you need is love /Moulin Rouge"). So, let's hear another mmmkay, because that's my motivation for writing it and it was for myself first and foremost, but I did on occasion think about who would be reading, and that's what I'm calling my "imagined audience".
A large part of my imagined audience were the people with whom I've listened to and discussed B/A who don't think the 'ship is feasible, practical, or realistic. A lot of people who don't prefer B/A as a 'ship think it's a puppy love, or a juvenile love, or a fairytale love, that was never meant to last or never meant to be. I wanted to respond to those people by saying, "In reality, this couple would have these types of problems. But it doesn't make their love any less real."
To narrow it down, the idea for this fic was actually a specific response to some people who replied directly to, or spoke of elsewhere, this post about what B/A means to me. There were at least two specific responses that were very respectful toward my feelings about B/A, but mentioned that I hadn't really addressed some of the issues that might arise with the 'ship post NFA (particularly issues that had to do with both Buffy and Angel being very alpha personalities). I wanted to respond to those people by saying, "Thses are the issues that would arise post NFA, and this is how they would deal with it. It might not be perfect, and it might not even work, but the love that's there is what I love about the 'ship."
To narrow it down even further, when I was writing the fic, I kept asking myself, "but what would![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
germaine_pet say?" I think Lynne is a terrific writer; one of the best short piece writers I've ever read period, fanfic or not. I also happen to know that she doesn't prefer to read about B/A, that the 'ship just doesn't appeal to her. She has mentioned several times various reasons why she thinks they're better off and more interesting as characters not together post-NFA. I wanted to take into consideration the things she's said over the months I've known her, and use that to really fully examine what I thought about B/A. Mostly, I wanted her or someone who feels as she does to be able to read it and say, "Yeah, these are the issues I think this couple would have. And yeah, the way you've presented this, I can see where you're coming from about B/A standing a chance, even if I don't agree."
The other thing about thinking about Lynne reading this piece, is she and several other fic authors whom I really respect have said that sometimes while my ideas are good and the words are really interesting, the prose gets convoluted and obscures what I'm trying to say. So, in efforts to make the writing more precise and elegant, I limited myself to exactly 300 words per section. It wasn't about making Lynne say, "Wow, 300 words!" or "Hey, you almost managed not to get bogged down!"--it was about me improving my writing. But in the effort of doing so, I kept imagining Lynne as beta saying, "TKP, you don't need that bit." Sometimes I said, "hey, shut up, Lynne," but sometimes I listened.
The end of this little anecdote is I finished the story, and just plain didn't want to tinker with it any more. I had done what I wanted and felt satisfied. But when I posted the story, I began to wonder whether it'd worked or not or whether I should've waited or worked harder. But then I got fb from Lynne, and it was pretty much like a reassurance that yeah, my work there was done. It's not a perfect story; it's not as good as it could be--but it's what I wanted to do. The same thing happened double whenstultiloquentia fb'ed--she's a fabulous writer who writes fabulous B/S. We've discussed on and off the merits and B/A and why it does or doesn't appeal to us, or how we think the 'ship worked. So when she said I'd addressed arguments she might've brought up against the 'ship, I was all, "yay! I wrote it for people like you, baby!" Stulti has also mentioned how my words tend to get cuaght up in themselves, and she said I'd done a good job with that this time, so triple yay!
There are other aspects to imagined audience. In the case described above, I was making a specific case for a specific 'ship for people who don't necessarily 'ship that way. But the idea of writing specifically for 'shippers has been discussed at length: for instance, S/X fics that don't explain the why or wherefores of Spike and Xander getting together, and so are mainly only accessible to people who already 'ship them.
Often, imagined audience has nothing to do with 'ship. For instance, just to show you what an arrogantprick inside-out-prick I am, I wrote Blood Types because I'd just read several stylistic, poetic, very formatted pieces that everyone was fawing over and I myself thought they were absolute crap, so I wrote a piece that I felt was all three but that I also felt was good stuff. My imagined audience were the same people who were fawning over those other pieces.
Sometimes, you're not trying to prove anything to an imagined audience, you're just writing something you think they'd like. I wrote Down There In The Reeperbahn thinking of a few people whose fics and meta I'd read who seemed to be really into the patterns and echos in AtS, Angel's life, and especially Connor's place in all that. Sometimes when I'm working on Best Souvenir I just think of my beta,a2zmom, and whether she would say, "but that doesn't make sense" or not. And there are certain people who, every single time, I think, "dude, if they liked this, I'd feel all tingely, just because it's them." That's usually writers I really respect--two of whom I've already mentioned: stultiloquentia and germaine_pet.
So, the point.
-What fics have you written with imaginary audiences in mind? Why?
-What's a group that's been your imaginary audience?
-Who's a person who's been your imaginary audience? (and name names, people. I was shy to saygermaine_pet at first because for a moment she was an imaginary audience for this post, and I imagined her saying, "Dude, that TKP is a suck up! Plus she stalks me and I think she smells. Also now if I don't fb does that make me a bad person? WHAT IS HER CHILDHOOD TRAUMA?" But I totally sucked it up, and suspected Lynne could handle it, too.)
-Is there a particular person or group who is often your imaginary audience, and if so, who are they?
-Who's that person who's fb you often or always think about when you write, and against your better judgment and confidence in yourself, feel kinda vindicated when you get?
-Who's your imagined unaudience? Who have you hoped would never read what you've written? Besides your mom and that skeevy guy you saw once at Wal-Mart who followed you for a full ten minutes and got some of his guano on your shoe, are there sometimes people on lj who you hope might skip on by such and such fic? Ever write something knowing so and so will dislike it, and hope they don't read it and think less of your writing for it?
So, recently a couple people have got me thinking about the concept of "imagined audience." Let me say first that I hope if you write, fanfic or original, you do it for yourself. It's great to get fb, praise, and a dialogue going with readers, but seriously if the writing itself doesn't please you, go do something else forgodsakes. Mmmkay, now that that's over with, what is this imagined audience? Well, I'm defining it as a specific person or group about whom you're thinking when you write, and whose fb makes you feel you've accomplished your goal.
Because that definition feels a. amorphous and r. really really wrong for some reason, let me give an example. Not to toot my own horn but toot toot, it's about the las fic I wrote, Ten Things That Pull Apart And One Thing That Holds Together. Now, I wrote this fic first and foremost because I love B/A, and what I love about it is the idea of "love overcoming all obstacles" ; despite the fact that that idea is cliched, a deep fanciful part of me really wants me to believe it's true. So I wrote a fic about obstacles to see whether I thought love could overcome them (for those of you who are curious, I'm unsure of the results. Half the time writing that fic, I thought: "B/A would never work." The other half I thought, "love is like oxygen love gives you wings all you need is love /Moulin Rouge"). So, let's hear another mmmkay, because that's my motivation for writing it and it was for myself first and foremost, but I did on occasion think about who would be reading, and that's what I'm calling my "imagined audience".
A large part of my imagined audience were the people with whom I've listened to and discussed B/A who don't think the 'ship is feasible, practical, or realistic. A lot of people who don't prefer B/A as a 'ship think it's a puppy love, or a juvenile love, or a fairytale love, that was never meant to last or never meant to be. I wanted to respond to those people by saying, "In reality, this couple would have these types of problems. But it doesn't make their love any less real."
To narrow it down, the idea for this fic was actually a specific response to some people who replied directly to, or spoke of elsewhere, this post about what B/A means to me. There were at least two specific responses that were very respectful toward my feelings about B/A, but mentioned that I hadn't really addressed some of the issues that might arise with the 'ship post NFA (particularly issues that had to do with both Buffy and Angel being very alpha personalities). I wanted to respond to those people by saying, "Thses are the issues that would arise post NFA, and this is how they would deal with it. It might not be perfect, and it might not even work, but the love that's there is what I love about the 'ship."
To narrow it down even further, when I was writing the fic, I kept asking myself, "but what would
germaine_pet say?" I think Lynne is a terrific writer; one of the best short piece writers I've ever read period, fanfic or not. I also happen to know that she doesn't prefer to read about B/A, that the 'ship just doesn't appeal to her. She has mentioned several times various reasons why she thinks they're better off and more interesting as characters not together post-NFA. I wanted to take into consideration the things she's said over the months I've known her, and use that to really fully examine what I thought about B/A. Mostly, I wanted her or someone who feels as she does to be able to read it and say, "Yeah, these are the issues I think this couple would have. And yeah, the way you've presented this, I can see where you're coming from about B/A standing a chance, even if I don't agree."The other thing about thinking about Lynne reading this piece, is she and several other fic authors whom I really respect have said that sometimes while my ideas are good and the words are really interesting, the prose gets convoluted and obscures what I'm trying to say. So, in efforts to make the writing more precise and elegant, I limited myself to exactly 300 words per section. It wasn't about making Lynne say, "Wow, 300 words!" or "Hey, you almost managed not to get bogged down!"--it was about me improving my writing. But in the effort of doing so, I kept imagining Lynne as beta saying, "TKP, you don't need that bit." Sometimes I said, "hey, shut up, Lynne," but sometimes I listened.
The end of this little anecdote is I finished the story, and just plain didn't want to tinker with it any more. I had done what I wanted and felt satisfied. But when I posted the story, I began to wonder whether it'd worked or not or whether I should've waited or worked harder. But then I got fb from Lynne, and it was pretty much like a reassurance that yeah, my work there was done. It's not a perfect story; it's not as good as it could be--but it's what I wanted to do. The same thing happened double when
stultiloquentia fb'ed--she's a fabulous writer who writes fabulous B/S. We've discussed on and off the merits and B/A and why it does or doesn't appeal to us, or how we think the 'ship worked. So when she said I'd addressed arguments she might've brought up against the 'ship, I was all, "yay! I wrote it for people like you, baby!" Stulti has also mentioned how my words tend to get cuaght up in themselves, and she said I'd done a good job with that this time, so triple yay!There are other aspects to imagined audience. In the case described above, I was making a specific case for a specific 'ship for people who don't necessarily 'ship that way. But the idea of writing specifically for 'shippers has been discussed at length: for instance, S/X fics that don't explain the why or wherefores of Spike and Xander getting together, and so are mainly only accessible to people who already 'ship them.
Often, imagined audience has nothing to do with 'ship. For instance, just to show you what an arrogant
Sometimes, you're not trying to prove anything to an imagined audience, you're just writing something you think they'd like. I wrote Down There In The Reeperbahn thinking of a few people whose fics and meta I'd read who seemed to be really into the patterns and echos in AtS, Angel's life, and especially Connor's place in all that. Sometimes when I'm working on Best Souvenir I just think of my beta,
a2zmom, and whether she would say, "but that doesn't make sense" or not. And there are certain people who, every single time, I think, "dude, if they liked this, I'd feel all tingely, just because it's them." That's usually writers I really respect--two of whom I've already mentioned: stultiloquentia and germaine_pet.So, the point.
-What fics have you written with imaginary audiences in mind? Why?
-What's a group that's been your imaginary audience?
-Who's a person who's been your imaginary audience? (and name names, people. I was shy to say
germaine_pet at first because for a moment she was an imaginary audience for this post, and I imagined her saying, "Dude, that TKP is a suck up! Plus she stalks me and I think she smells. Also now if I don't fb does that make me a bad person? WHAT IS HER CHILDHOOD TRAUMA?" But I totally sucked it up, and suspected Lynne could handle it, too.)-Is there a particular person or group who is often your imaginary audience, and if so, who are they?
-Who's that person who's fb you often or always think about when you write, and against your better judgment and confidence in yourself, feel kinda vindicated when you get?
-Who's your imagined unaudience? Who have you hoped would never read what you've written? Besides your mom and that skeevy guy you saw once at Wal-Mart who followed you for a full ten minutes and got some of his guano on your shoe, are there sometimes people on lj who you hope might skip on by such and such fic? Ever write something knowing so and so will dislike it, and hope they don't read it and think less of your writing for it?
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People who like fantasy/horror/adventure/romance.
People who like BtVS fan fiction.
People who like Buffy/Spike fan fiction.
People who do not like Buffy/Spike fan fiction.
People who like unsouled redemption stories.
People who don't like unsouled redemption stories.
People who say "How exactly are we defining redemption this week, anyway?"
People who complain that people who write unsouled S/B always make Spike a fluffy puppy.
People who don't think you can put Buffy in a long-term relationship with unsouled Spike and make it believable.
People who don't think you can write interesting stories about long-term relationships, period.
I wrote The Sure Thing for several reasons–I'd wanted to write a story from a minion's POV for some time, and I'd wanted to write a Damon Runyon pastiche (in the non-Harry Potter sense of the word) for some time. And wrastling with Three Deep was making me crazy and a I wanted a break. But it didn't come together until
But I think that's an exception; I don't often write stories with particular people in mind, more... demographic groups, I guess. And me, because I am one of those sad pathetic egotists who enjoys reading her own stories. There are a number of people whose writing and whose taste I admire, and I am extra-happy if one of them gives me fb. But I really, really love getting the fb that says "Usually I hate Spuffy, but yours I like."
I don't think I have an unaudience. I've never posted a story I hoped someone wouldn't read. I know that with every decision I make about where to take the series I disappoint some people, and sometimes I feel a little glum about that, but you can't please everyone; that's impossible. Though I'm always secretly nervous that I actually suck quite a lot, and people are leaving ""Great story!" fb to be polite and then IM'ing one another:
BNF1: o god did you see her latest? Total crap.
BNF2: I stopped reading her ages ago.
BNF1: Lucky you.
(btw, I really liked "Ten Things." Though I do not so much think B/A can't work as like S/B much better. *g*)
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Anywho, if I am writing towards an audience, it does tend to be toward a group rather than a specific person. But often someone will say a specific thing that gets me motivated: I forgot to mention, but I actually put pen to paper on the Ten Things B/A fic when I was reading some random meta about something else that said most fandoms tended to be apocalyptic, so we're rarely interesting in watching the characters brush their teeth. I, being B/A obsessed, am actually VERY interested in Buffy and Angel brushing their teeth, so there you go.
I like how some of your audiences contradict each other. Way to go for exploring new directions. And I don't think you need to worry about people leaving nice fb just to be nice. Although I don't know about those BNFs. I know how meeeeen and nasty they are ;o)
(And thanks! Totally understand that.)
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It both is and isn't a motive--like I said, I try to write primarily because I have a cool story I want to tell, not to prove a point. But if I enjoy writing about X, Y, and Z, then I want to make X, Y, and Z come off as believably as possible in my story. I want people to buy into X, Y, and Z.
And it doesn't always work, of course, because along with the "Whoa! You sold me on X!" I also get the "X? Dude, you fail!"
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And it doesn't always work, of course, because along with the "Whoa! You sold me on X!" I also get the "X? Dude, you fail!"
And that doesn't make or break the fic itself at all. If one's happy with it and proud of it, I think one should stay happy and proud. I can see being disappointed that so and so thought it failed, and I can also see why a comment like that might help you go back to the very beginning and see that in fact what you tried to do *didn't* work to your absolute satisfaction, but the audience doesn't make or break the story.
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I'm interested in the intersection of the supernatural and mundane, how the two worlds play off one another, and how the characters negotiate them. So what I like, I guess, is stories about fang-brushing.
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I like the juxtaposition too. Fang brushing. *snorfle* It should be a genre.