Why writers should put their readers first
It’s embarrassing to admit this, but there have been times along my writing journey when I’ve spent more time thinking about how my writing can serve me than how it can serve readers. I became a much better writer when I realized the purpose of my writing is to entertain and inspire others. When I shifted my focus outward, I could better see what I needed to work on to improve my reader’s experience and ultimately my own writing. Of course, there is also individual writing where we want to focus inward, journal writing for example. But, if you’re serious about building a reader base and audience who enjoys your work, it’s a good idea to start thinking about who that audience is and how you can best meet their expectations. To do this, I focused on four key areas.
1) Entertainment
Readers pick up books and stories because they want to be entertained. How is your book keeping your reader invested and turning pages? It’s our job to make sure our readers don’t get bogged down or bored. In order to truly entertain readers, we need to focus on learning storytelling craft. Storytelling craft is the art of keeping an audience engaged with a book, movie script or play. For some writers, storytelling concepts come naturally, but for most of us, we need to be intentional about learning and including these concepts in our novels. If you’re wondering where to begin learning storytelling craft, two books I’d recommend are: Save the Cat Writes a Novel and Story Genius. If you need more in-depth help, I’m a storytelling coach! Feel free to get in touch through my contact form.
2) Universal truths
This has to do with a story’s theme. While most of us don’t like to be knocked over the head with moral lessons, almost every story has a universal truth or theme that readers relate to. One of your jobs as a writer is to discover and reflect truth back into the world through your stories. What do you see about the world that needs fixing? How can you speak about this through your characters? Theme is one of the most challenging things to nail down when it comes to storytelling, but once you get it, readers will better identify with your character and they’ll also experience genuine emotion and new ways of thinking about the world.
3) Flawed characters in need of transformation
People love drama. So, what’s at the heart of drama? Conflict and messy people who make bad choices. Everyone craves a good transformation story because we not only witness these stories in our lives, but we live them ourselves. Your main character should have something deeply wrong with them. It will take your entire story to help fix their flaw. You’ll put them through tough situations that test their beliefs. It sounds mean, but what you’re trying to do is make them a better person (or demonstrate the consequences for someone who can’t grow and change). Every plot point should be focused on helping your character transform and grow (even if they ultimately don’t get there). Stories reflect the truth, and just like real life our characters should experience challenges that help make them strong.
4) Understanding genre expectations
Whatever genre you write, you need to be familiar with its most popular writers. They are popular for a reason! Your book doesn’t have to include every trope or be exactly like the other books in your genre. That’s definitely not what I’m saying! But, you should understand what readers of your genre expect. You can’t write drastically outside of reader expectations and expect people to get it or like it. Here’s my best tip: learn your genre’s tropes and reader expectations, then think of small ways to subvert those expectations so that you have something unique. Don’t write without knowing what genre tropes exist. Your readers won’t be able to make the leap to understand and enjoy your story if they are expecting one thing and it’s way off. Part of an enjoyable reader experience is when authors either meet our expectations, or suprise us by subverting them (on purpose - not because they don’t understand our expectations).
Focus on these four things and you’ll not only put your reader first, but you’ll improve your writing and storytelling skills drastically! I promise.
