Monday, May 25, 2015

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #325 -- Writing for Adult Readers

Do you like to create books for adults?


Yes.

Oh, what? You want more?

Okay.

As much as I enjoy good children's literature (although I wholeheartedly subscribe to C.S. Lewis' definition of a good children's story), I greatly prefer the broader freedom for theme and tone that stories for adults can provide. That's not to say that you can't broach similar subjects in books for younger readers (and some would argue that the only difference between Young Adult stories and regular adult stories is the audience's age, not the restrictions in being "appropriate" for that audience's age).

Plus, as a genre writer, there's a lot to be said for having to freedom to narrate a particularly gruesome murder or have a protagonist need to connect with another human so much that he or she throws caution to the wind and jumps into bed with a stranger. But let's be honest, for a writer who know what he or she is doing, those can (some would say should) be isolated, rare occurrences in fiction unless he or she is writing a story for a particular audience or publisher.

The story is still of key importance, regardless of the audience's age. That said, however, I still prefer the open-endedness of writing for adults.

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