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.

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #319 -- All Ages Writing

Do you write your pulp-style action stories with all ages in mind, 

intentionally targeting a particular age group as being okay for it?

Unless I'm mandated by a publisher, I don't set out with the intention of telling a G, PG, PG-13, R-rated story. I mainly just focus on being true to my characters.

If my dirty cop would cuss like a sailor, he's gonna cuss like a sailor. If my jaded P.I. would drink himself into a stupor and sleep around, then you can bet he's gonna do it in the story. If my struggling pastor recovering from an affair stays on guard and tries to be the most moral person in the room, by golly that's going to flavor the words he says and way he does things.

Nothing irks me worse than reading a cop thriller in which the cops all talk as if their moms were hiding behind the corner to wash their mouths out with soap at a moment's notice. Or to read about despicable people who do despicable, violent things, then talk like missionaries (unless that's an intentional affectation). Or worse, to read about lost, broken people who are looking for affection in a physical relationship, then have a writer chicken out and have them barely hold hands with each other and only hint about rainbows and doves and rain as euphemisms for physical interaction. I got enough of that in the overly sanitized religious fiction I used to sell when I worked in a Christian bookstore.

When I write, I write gritty, pulp-style narratives or adult literary prose. I don't write bloodless cozies or sweet young debutantes solving a murder with their local book club. I write about real people (or at least the closest I can get in prose) getting into life or death situations and struggles who react like the broken, angry, hurt, beleaguered, wounded, faulty, fallen people we all can be. My characters speak, think, and act in neither whites nor blacks for the most part. They live in the grays where we all have to.

My bottom line is to be true to the characters. If I'm writing for a younger market, I'll create and write about characters that are appropriate to that market. If I'm writing for a religious market, I'll create characters that fit that market, not sanitized characters who don't fit it until the point of overly sensitive artificiality.

If none of those cases apply, I'm going to assume I'm writing to adults who want to read my story the way it's supposed to be written.

Looking Out for Number One... or Is That Number Two? Writing for Yourself or For the Fans?

So, you've got a hankering to write a hard sci-fi or a classic whodunit, but your fans are clamoring for more super-heroes or demon-witches turned romantic spies. Hence this week's questions for the roundtable.

Providing we're not otherwise contractually obligated for a certain book or series, as creators, how much do we try and placate our fans, even when we would rather be writing something else?

To whom do we owe our primarily devotion, our drives as writers or our fans? Do we do what we want to do, put our own preferences as creators first?

Matt Adams: Writers owe it to themselves to write what makes them happy. Otherwise, what's the point? Why slog through a story you have no passion for? My first book is a superhero novel, setting me up as the "superhero guy" whether I like it or not. I love the genre and will embrace that. Every book I write, though, does not involve superheroes. My novels span several different genres (really, science fictional subgenres): space opera, high-concept sci-fi, sports sci-fi, fantasy.

Right now, I can afford to do that because I'm a newbie author. If I make any money at this point in my writing career, it's a bonus. I'm not doing it for a living. My answer would likely be different if I had to sell books for my livelihood. Then, I'd have to gauge what my fans wanted. If they overwhelmingly cried out for another superhero book, I'd write it, but I'd also work on that paranormal romance idea I was jazzed about writing. In related news, if I have an idea for a paranormal romance book, please discourage me from writing it. I don't think I have a knack for the genre.

Patrick Tomlinson: My primary devotion is to my rent, car payment, and disposable income to dispose of upon young women.

David Boop: I write what I'm inspired to write, never to the fans of a specific genre. The fact that I write what some people want to read is a blessing.

John Morgan Neal: One of the reasons I created Aym Geronimo the way I did was so that I could tell all kinds of stories. Sci-fi, adventure, action, mystery, horror etc etc. My other properties were horror/adventure (Rex Solomon), western (Gone to Texas/Death and Texas), and Sci Fi heroes (THEM: Atomic Age Heroes). So I tend to do what I want. Now if someone were to give me gobs of money...

Ed Crandell: I write for me. The fans are just along for the ride. ;]

John Hartness: I tend to write multiple projects at once. So one thing I'm working on is for a deadline or the fans, and another thing is something new that I want to play around with. Like this week I've done half my time on the new Black Knight novel, because it's on deadline, and half the time on a redneck steampunk short that I wanted to write.

Mark Bousquet: I went through this a couple years back. More people seemed to like my first novel, Dreamer's Syndrome (a contemporary fantasy) than my second, Adventures of the Five (a kid's book), though I liked the second novel much more. I got a more enthusiastic response about Five, but a larger overall respnse about Dreamer's. So I did the only logical thing - I wrote something completely different for novel #3.  So I guess the answer is that I don't write specifically for the fans but I'm certainly not blind to their likes and wants, either. Knowing that there are people out there who want more adventures with my characters can help me through the slow times.

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For more information: Patrick Tomlinson, David Boop, John Neal, Ed Crandell, John Hartness, Mark Bousquet