Choosing Your Audience

For Whom to Write

I find choosing an audience so difficult. When I’m inspired, I tend to just start writing. But the thing is, different age groups, genres, targets require different writing styles.

I’m not going to talk about the biting cold, stinging his cheeks when I’m writing a little kids’ book and I’m not going to say ‘they walked and they walked and they walked until they got to the top of the hill’ for a young adult novel.

Similarly there are different topics and subject matters that should appear in some books and not others. It’s unlikely that a teen book would be about your ‘first ever day at school’.

So, how does one choose a target audience, and should one stick to that target audience?

If you’re me, the answer to the second question is absolutely not. My three main target audiences that I am interested in writing for are picture books level, middle grade and young adult.

I actually have in process a book in each of those target audiences. You may be wondering, why on earth anyone would do that to themselves? Writing a book in one age range is difficult enough, why write three in all different age ranges?

Well, the picture book is entirely my son’s fault. We were pretend playing van drivers and then the story just pinged into my head. I didn’t write it down immediately, I’ve mulled it over a little and written a quick first draft to revisit later when I can focus on it a bit more.

The Young Adult Science Fiction, that is a labour of love. I don’t have the time I want to spend on it in lots of detail but I love visiting that world. Hopefully I will soon have a bit more time to work on it.

The two fantasy novels I have started (with another in my head) are just ideas that came to me. (Picture by http://powerlisting.wikia.com/)

It’s not that I am trying intentionally to dip my toe into all these different target groups and genres, I just have to tell the story that’s in my head. If I don’t.. I tend to talk to myself.

So, I’m not really sure what to tell you. I appear not to be the best to give advice on this. My opinion is write about anything and everything and everywhere and when your imagination takes you.