Ideal Readers for Writers

Writers are often urged to identify and write for our “Ideal Reader.”    Defining this ideal reader shapes the way we write and how our work is marketed by agents and publishers.  For example, writing a children's picture book is a very different project from an adult science fiction novel.
     In Craft in the Real World, Matthew Salesses points out,
“You can’t control who reads your fiction, but you can control whom you write for.” 

I’m writing for readers who share my values and worldview: 

• readers who appreciate the power and magic of the natural world, 
• who believe courageous acts can change the world, 
• who long to overcome prejudice and celebrate human diversity.

As Ken Liu pointed out in the Gotham Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Intensive: 

• “Fiction is a collaboration between reader and writer. Every reader moves into the story with her own luggage and personal mythos. 
• “To be an artist is to be vulnerable and live with the reality that others will misinterpret your stories.”

How do we shape our stories, given that we’re powerless over how others interpret them? 
Ken's advice: Pursue the stories that excite you.

     I also find it helpful to focus on the integrity of the story, rather than when (or if) it’ll be published and what editors or potential readers may think of it.
     As Jane Smiley said (quoted in Mattew Bell’s blog):

• "I believe that you either love the work or the rewards. Life is a lot easier if you love the work.”

So I write to shape and polish the stories I’m given, to give voice to the characters living in my heart.
​    With each story or poem I finish, each book draft I revise, I feel an undeniable sense of accomplishment.
​    Matthew Bell (author of Refuse to Be Done): “No one can take the person you’ve become by writing your book away from you; few outside accomplishments can honestly do more.”

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