I usually don’t buy into the whole “this series didn’t finish the way I wanted it to”. Mainly because a) I understand the crushing pressure of meeting reader expectations, of writing for an audience, of trying to cap a story off in a satisfactory way while being true to yourself, and b) I don’t usually care all that much. And I doubly don’t care when it’s not even a series I’ve really read.
However, I couldn’t help taking note of the whole furore around the Sookie Stackhouse series. I just couldn’t. Because even I, with my one-book-read-one-TV-series-watched-limited-experience, could see how problematic that ending was. And not in a “betraying some pairing I don’t give a crap about” way. In a kind of…betraying the initial themes of your series sort of way.
I always thought the books were about vampire acceptance and so on – that Sookie stood out because she understood. And I liked that she wanted more than her humdrum life. So to end it on that note…to have her return to that life, and the guy who always had a crush on her…well, it seems like the biggest retrogressive step since Dorothy decided fook Oz, I want depression era Kansas!
Very few people want grinding poverty and hardship over a magical world. Don’t try to tell me they do. And I can’t help thinking that the same message is in the end of Harris’ books: women don’t want more. They want less, less, less!
Though I guess I could forgive that possible message, if I didn’t suspect the reason for it was based on the need to subvert reader expectations. I mean, I can imagine what the weight of that audience must have been like – I’ve experienced maybe one millionth of it and one millionth of it is heavy enough. And I get that the pressure and the urge to surprise and do something different and not give in when you have a “vision” must be strong.
But here’s the thing: what’s so bad about giving readers what they want? I don’t mean compromising yourself or your work. I don’t mean selling out, or just giving in to what everyone is saying. I just mean…what’s so bad about writing with your audience in mind?
I love writing with my audience in my mind. And although it’s sometimes tough and frustrating and I feel buried beneath the expectation that I’m probably just imagining, I don’t think I’d have it any other way. Why would I? The thrill of having readers and wanting to give them something they like far outweighs that little voice in my head that wishes I could go back and write clean and fresh and with no worries about it.
Because the truth is…even back then when I had no readers, and didn’t worry about what I was writing…I still worried about what I was writing. I was still always aware of my genre, of its boundaries, of what I could do with those boundaries. How far could I push them? How could I operate within them and still be myself? All my works have been an experiment in that very thing: being different within the conventions.
I love nothing better than taking the familiar – taking something that readers will love – and putting my own spin on it. In fact, that’s what I prefer to do, and I think it’s because I actually love most of the things that many readers want. I am a reader myself. I love popular tropes. I love angsty vampires and sexy billionaires and bad boys with a heart of gold.
I just like to tell stories about them in my own way. For me, it’s all in the telling. Not the trope. No matter what reader expectations are…no matter how much that pressure gets to you…no matter how many people accuse you of jumping on some bandwagon that existed well before the band first made a billion dollars…it’s the telling that really counts. And I hope I always feel that way. I’m not so proud I can pretend readers don’t matter.
But I can still be me when I write for them.
I love this post. I haven’t read any of the Sookie books or seen True Blood, but I’m interested in this whole idea of who to write for, how much to let those reader voices whisper in your ear. I find the balancing act between speaking for myself and speaking TO others — readers, agent, editor, or even some idea of what these people represent — to be one of the most challenging parts of being a published author, and a territory that feels much less charted than the earlier negotiation of how to get to this point. In part, it’s because there is so much deeply personal interaction with psychology — the whole question of *which* readers to listen to, how deeply one takes critique to heart, what it feels like to write with passion about something you’re not sure anyone wants to read versus to write without passion about something you know everyone will love. There is a kind of spectrum to it, and every writer has to make some kind of decision about which point(s) to inhabit on it. It’s kind of emotionally exhausting.
Great post and points! Oh, the ever elusive ideal reader. Can we transform readers into the ideal reader? (I used to think that I could if I wrote well enough. ha.)
LOL ah, the naïveté of our youthful years! Oh, I wish it were so.
I’m so glad I’m not alone on this! And yes, it’s not just readers. It’s everyone behind the scenes, too. Striking a balance is sometimes near impossible and exhausting – especially when one of your editors likes things that most readers seem to hate.
But I think to ignore these people with a beret on your head and a moody haircut and important glasses, sighing over your niche art, is just foolish. As tiring as it can be, I think it’s important to do. I always have.
I’ve read all the Sookie books, many of them in hardcover as they were published.
The ending of this series wasn’t just unfulfilling, it was deflating. I felt less than.
I thought about how my own expectation(s) might have played a role in this, but I am easy reader. My ability to spend disbelief is magical. Wherever an author leads, I will follow…but the author must lay out some yellow bricks.
At the end, all the yellow bricks that had been leading me towards Sookie’s growth as a person and as a supernatural in her own right were paved over. It was like Sookie learned nothing, her journey meant nothing. It was exactly like landing back in Kansas, (“Fook Oz” as you say LOL!) only Oz wasn’t a dream and Sam the Scarecrow was still pretty dopey.
There have been some great Wonko-posts on argument & pathos & voice…on making seemingly crazy ideas WORK. I think that maybe, just maybe, a compelling argument will carry reader expectation where it needs to go.
Had there been more argument for Sookie wanting to stay right where she started, that “home town acceptance” was what she really needed…then perhaps the subversion would’ve worked for me.
I think you’re that sort of reader too – welcoming, thoughtful, willing to go with stuff. You’re my dream reader, in truth. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have certain (and to my mind, small) expectations. I think as readers we’re allowed to expect an author to at least stay true to their core theme, you know? You can’t just randomly switch messages in the final ten seconds!
You’re right to be annoyed. She didn’t lay the bricks.
But I like that idea, too. That authors have the power to convince. I guess it swings both ways: you can convince a reader a stale trope is fresh, in the telling. But maybe you can also convince them into reading something niche or weird or totally not the reader’s idea of he right direction – if the conviction is there in your words.
Great food for thought, hon.
But here’s the thing: what’s so bad about giving readers what they want? I don’t mean compromising yourself or your work. I don’t mean selling out, or just giving in to what everyone is saying. I just mean…what’s so bad about writing with your audience in mind?
I imagine that the tension between wanting to write something that readers love and wanting to write something you love is one of the most difficult parts of writing fiction, especially genre/commercial fiction, where reader expectations can have a real impact on the evolution of a genre. And I’ve certainly enjoyed some of your books, so I can’t object to your philosophy based on my own experience of your writing.
But I do think there are some dangers here, and that they’re evident in the two examples you used in your piece.
In regard to The Wizard of Oz, apparently it’s considered the most popular movie of all time, and Salman Rushdie has written some interesting theories about why that is (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-narcissus-in-all-us/201006/why-the-wizard-oz-is-the-most-popular-film-all-time), one of which is based on the idea that the ending, paired with the fantastical dream, allows the viewer (or reader, since the book was phenomenally popular, as well, almost 40 years before the movie came out) to enjoy both the magic of Oz and the comforts of home and family. Which for me underlines the power of multiple interpretations, with the added complexity of having to project ourselves into another time — inclusive of different perspectives — when we look at how people in another era processed their reality. I’m sure people will look back on us and wonder why we valued some of the things we do, but our immersion in this reality means that we see things differently than those looking back at us might. This disconnect is one of the most difficult things about creating “authentic” historical fiction, of course.
One thing I hear from authors is that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to predict what will hit with readers and what will miss. Which makes sense, since texts, as an interactive medium, accommodate multiple, even conflicting interpretations, some of which may be well beyond what the author intends or even feels are valid herself.
Then there’s the issue of “which readers?,” which I think the Sookie controversy highlights. There are readers who believe that Sookie should have ended up with Eric. There are readers who believe that Sookie should have ended up with Alcide or Quinn or Bill. There are those — like you — who see the end as “retrogressive,” and there are readers — like me — who think your judgments about the end of the series are dead wrong (sorry, I couldn’t avoid the cheesy pun).
So when an author talks about listening to her readers, I’m never sure what, exactly, that means. Is it the readers who write letters? Is it the readers who write Amazon reviews? Is it the readers who have read every book faithfully, or those who might be captured with a new book? I feel like JR Ward was fashioning her BDB series in response to (some) readers, taking out the Lesser POV for at least one book; doing m/m, when I think she’d initially said that none of the characters would be gay, etc., and for me the series just got weaker and less coherent as it went along. Obviously many other readers disagree.
So maybe it’s a matter of sort of creating one’s audience in the process of writing? Or at least more deliberately inviting certain readers into the world of the text?
I have to admit that the idealist reader in me wishes that more authors would not be so concerned about their readers when they write, because think those genre-busting books that come along and force an evolution are too few and far between. I know there’s a huge risk in not writing to a perceived readership, but I also think the genre can become artificially narrowed by focusing too much on what readers *allegedly* want, instead of giving us something new that we didn’t know we wanted but that we absolutely love once we get it. As a reader, there’s little that thrills me more than that.
Oh my god, I had massive response and lost it. Can’t believe it.
Anyway, first off: I did a little squee when I saw your comment. Big fan of your amazing posts!
And then I said some things about Oz, which I have a lot of feelings about. Of course I fully accept that I filter the movie through my own emotional make up, but for me “no place like home” has just always been more of a rejection than it has a suggestion that you can have both. It only honours one world. I can’t get around that. And there are all these other layers for me personally because Return To Oz was such a pivotal film in my life. It was the first time I’d ever seen anything that suggested (for girls in particular) you could have something more. It’s okay to not want to settle. Of course, Kansas is a lot more of a “she’s a mentally ill madwoman in the attic” kind of place in Return, but to me that just seemed like the realistic end. So often that’s what girls get: stop your fancy dreaming and be as a girl should be.
Whether this problem truly does exist in Harris’ novels, however, I cannot say. I haven’t read as much of the books as you and can’t claim any authority – and I wouldn’t anyway! It was just my interpretation of that ending.
As for the tension between writing for yourself and writing for the reader, and which reader you’re writing for…I don’t think I could ever really give a good answer. All I know for certain is that ignoring your audience completely, in all of its incarnations, can end very badly for a writer. Rejections, low sales, getting dropped, etc.
However, that’s the practical me talking. The me who knows exactly what happens when I put out a femdom book, the me who sees the response coming a mile away when I sub something different. That person isn’t going to lie to new writers and tell them it will be easy if they write about niche things that romance readers don’t generally like. And she won’t condemn or scoff at any writer that wants to try their hand at a familiar and much loved storyline/genre/trope.
But there’s another me who wants the exact same thing you do. I’d love nothing better than those genre busting books to explode the genre wide open. I’d love to see more femdom, more men being the saved and not the saviour, more reversals, etc. Its why I’m here, at wonkomance, because I want to push as I hard as I can against the limits.
I won’t ever stop trying, and hoping. I’ll take those tropes and make them my own, even if rationally I know that “my own” is often something many readers do not want.
Thank you so much for the sweet compliment about my blog posts!
Of course I fully accept that I filter the movie through my own emotional make up, but for me “no place like home” has just always been more of a rejection than it has a suggestion that you can have both. It only honours one world.
I do understand where you’re coming from. So here’s my take: By having Dorothy be herself in Oz, by having her be a leader, as a friend of mine put it, and by having her being in charge, basically, of transformed characters from her “real” world, she gets an alternative look at what kind of life she can lead once she returns home.
For me, it’s not automatically empowering for a young woman to have to give up her beloved family for magic, so for me, having her stay in Oz would feel like an unsatisfactory sacrifice. But I can easily imagine her going back to Kansas and realizing that she can do anything she wants, that she can harness the power of “woman” and become a leader in her “real” world.
So for me it’s not disempowerment, but opportunity.
Whether this problem truly does exist in Harris’ novels, however, I cannot say. I haven’t read as much of the books as you and can’t claim any authority – and I wouldn’t anyway! It was just my interpretation of that ending.
I think the True Blood TV series is much more misogynistic and disempowering to the female characters than anything in the books. And in regard to Harris’s Sookie, a woman who from the beginning of the series just wanted to feel like she belonged in her world — who had always felt like a freak and an outsider — I found the ending satisfying, because for me the main focus of the series was always on Sookie and on her emotional journey. As for her possible partner (it’s left ambiguous, another thing I liked), he’s hardly the hometown Joe — he’s a shifter who has become a political leader in the “coming out” shifter movement.
That is, the shifters have followed the vamps out of hiding, and have been facing many of the same challenges the vamps did. Sam’s mother was even shot by her husband when he found out she was a shifter. So I never felt that in choosing a guy for Sookie that she didn’t have to die or live only at night to stay with (especially since one of Sookie’s favorite activities is sunbathing) was a cop out. For me it seemed like a way to honor the political progressivism of the supes without having Sookie sacrifice so much of what she was for a relationship. Not to mention the fact that Sam was always always always the kindest, most generous, and most supportive man in Sookie’s life. So, yeah, I don’t read the end as regressive at all, although I understand that others do. Still, I think it’s hardly an open and shut case, and I think the incredible character of Eric in the TV show (and the beautiful Alexander Skarsgard) has complicated the issue, as well.
However, that’s the practical me talking. The me who knows exactly what happens when I put out a femdom book, the me who sees the response coming a mile away when I sub something different. That person isn’t going to lie to new writers and tell them it will be easy if they write about niche things that romance readers don’t generally like. And she won’t condemn or scoff at any writer that wants to try their hand at a familiar and much loved storyline/genre/trope.
I completely get this. And I understand that there are times when reader and author interests just may not be in line. I think the hardest thing for me is feeling like I’m so often NOT the reader in mind for books, or that even in books I enjoy, I’m feeling like there are still so many envelopes left to be pushed. And I get that not every reader feels like I do, either in what I like or in whether the market is providing it.
Still, I do hope that authors realize that there are always readers they don’t necessarily see who might be in for that idea that *seems* like it’s too far off the grid. In fact, I think one of the reasons authors like Kristen Ashley have taken off so dramatically is because, at least in her case, it feels like she’s writing balls to the wall Romance — no self-consciousness about rules and about what readers might object to or find too out there. And I think a lot of readers are hungry for that, and we’ll read it, even when the writing and editing is less than ideal, because it’s a new challenge.
Hee hee I can’t believe I’m having a discussion with Robin. I feel so grown up!
On Oz: yeah, I can see where you’re coming from. I think I just value that home/reality/family component less (possibly less than I should), and I know that’s because of my own issues and baggage and what have you. Not because your perspective is wrong! It makes perfect sense to me to see it that way…it’s just not what I *feel*. I tend to value the fantastical more – in fiction at least. Or at least, in that sort of movie. It’s the same for me with Labyrinth, Neverending Story, etc. These were huge films for me, and the promise of something so amazing was a Big Deal in my young mind. And then of course that bled through into feminist theory studies and what have you.
On Sookie Stackhouse: I think it ameliorates some of the issues, that he is a supe. It doesn’t take away that taste of “there’s no place like home” for me – but as I’ve said, I’m just very sensitive to that. It bothers me, in any incarnation.
But I do think, like you, that Alexander Skarsgard has caused major problems both for the fandom and for Harris. And the fact that she’s written so many books in the series, too. It made it too easy, I think, for fans to forget what a strong, warm presence Sam was in Sookie’s life. And of course, onscreen he seems even more insignificant, compared to Alex. As I said to a friend – it probably would have worked a lot more for the fans who were after the Eric/Sookie pairing if she’d ended it at book three. Which makes me wonder if she ever really intended to have an Eric/Sookie pairing at all, in the beginning. When you read the first book, it makes no sense at all. And from what I’ve seen onscreen, it doesn’t make much sense later on, either.
Re: books. Oh God, tell me about it. I remember when I first discovered fanfiction, and being so excited to see people writing about passive female characters doing exciting things. I expected to find sexy stories about dominant women, and was amazed that 99% of it was the opposite. I naively thought people would explore all the options that aren’t all over our screens and in our books.
LOL, I was very wrong. And I continue to be wrong. What I hope for is generally not what people write. Even using the Kristen Ashley example…for me, her work just feels like the same stories in a slightly different jacket. Alpha male, controlling, etc. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! No no – that’s my whole point. In fact, she’s doing things exactly how I think authors *can* do things, if they’re interested in exploring popular tropes. Just do it in your own way! Make it pop and sizzle with your own style, your own touches, your own commentary even on those tropes.
That’s what I hope to do, and try to do. Sometimes that’s what I have to do. I recently finished writing a novel about an alpha male businessman, and I just couldn’t have him being that completely controlling, spank-happy, dominant archetype. I had to…colour slightly outside the lines. Whether it’s worked or not though, I have no idea!
I really do understand your issues with the home thing. I have my own personal ambivalence with that, but I definitely think what Harris is doing, for example, is different from the standard ‘heroine gives up big life for small town pleasures’ trope you see in some female-centric fiction.
I think the whole home concept is incredibly complicated, because first, the reconstruction of a home space can be incredibly subversive for a female protagonist, depending on her circumstances and on the way the space is reconstituted. Feminist theory has dealt differently with the idea of the domestic, of course, depending on the theoretical school and wave, but I think it’s especially difficult in domestic genres like Romance, where there is explicit contemplation of the concept of love, marriage, and family, regardless. Other/related genres written by women — urban fantasy, erotica, erotic romance — circle around similar issues, IMO.
In terms of Oz, I’m less invested in the home space than I am in the way in which Dorothy is explicitly told (and shown, through her adventure), that she has the power to change her reality within her. That, for me, is what prevails in the story. Because if we were to flip the home paradigm with the magical world paradigm, then that magical world becomes the “home” space (this is the dilemma with revolution, right? You do a 360 rotation and end up where you started), with all of its own problems, relative to a “new” other space.
Re. fan fiction, I think it’s like any other “genre” — most of it is derivative, and a small proportion is brilliantly innovative. Which small proportion depends on how reader interacts with text, of course, so it’s going to be a different call for different readers. ;D I had that response to Erotic Romance when I first started reading it years ago — so much felt even MORE conventional than so-called regular Romance. As if the sexual freedom needed to be circumscribed even more strongly within a controlled space. When Megan Hart domesticated Elle and Dan from Dirty, I could hardly believe it!
Re. Ashley, I think part of her genius (and yes, I think there’s a genius to what she’s doing) is her ability to mesh the familiar with the envelope-pushing. I don’t know how many of her books you’ve read (I’ve read at least 10 — and not all of them have worked for me, by a long shot)), but one thing I really believe is that she challenges the use of the term “controlling” as standard genre shorthand. Because her books so explicitly contemplate the power dynamic between hero and heroine, I think it’s really provocative. Also, she’s writing so many scenarios and characters that people adamantly claim won’t work (protagonists of color, interracial marriages, suicide subplots, ex-con heroes, heroines who out-earn the heroes, etc.). Her heroines have large social networks and often have strong, loving families; her protags are often older with children; some of her heroines start secondary relationships in the books when the heroes make asses of themselves, etc. And the length of her books, as rambling and nuts as if often is, creates an intimacy with the narrator that really forces the reader to think about how these characters are interacting and what beliefs drive them. With ever-shrinking book lengths, I can see why her sagas are so popular. Not that I’m at all interested in having her books be duplicated by other authors — but I think it’s interesting that the people I know who have read more in the genre than probably anyone else I know, find her books innovative.
Although 50 didn’t work for me personally, I think the reaction it caused in readers — the public declaration by women that they owned their sexual fantasies — was astonishing, and testimony to the fact that even heavily derivative tropes and devices can be renovated in provocative and powerful ways. Jo Goodman’s books are like that for me, too. I so wish she were more widely appreciated.
“I really do understand your issues with the home thing. I have my own personal ambivalence with that, but I definitely think what Harris is doing, for example, is different from the standard ‘heroine gives up big life for small town pleasures’ trope you see in some female-centric fiction.”
I hope so. And I’m glad if the difference is there enough for you and I’m sure many readers to feel it and see it. If she’d denied it entirely, I think that would have been a massive problem.
“Feminist theory has dealt differently with the idea of the domestic, of course, depending on the theoretical school and wave, but I think it’s especially difficult in domestic genres like Romance, where there is explicit contemplation of the concept of love, marriage, and family, regardless.”
Yeah – because I think in Romance, often the goal is to find happiness in those areas. Home is the Oz, in Romance, to some extent. Not always, obviously – I’m wary of generalising – but a lot of the time. The power of home, of marriage, of love, of domesticity that goes beyond the repressive, retrogressive problems women actually often face (or have faced) in reality…that is the beauty (for me) of a romance novel. Especially of a good erotic romance novel, because with an erotic romance novel I feel like women can not only control that home space and make it something better, stronger, more loving, more wonderful, but can control the sexual space too. It’s why I love romance so much, because for me the idea of “home” in reality can be so…contentious? But in fantasy, it can be more. Which makes me feel your point more, if I’m getting anywhere close to the right idea.
“In terms of Oz, I’m less invested in the home space than I am in the way in which Dorothy is explicitly told (and shown, through her adventure), that she has the power to change her reality within her.”
I can see where you’re coming from, but I just can’t see past Return To Oz. I’m framing it from a completely different perspective – one in which Dorothy is almost tortured into never changing the reality within her. Into never going back, never even having a harmless fantasy, never being anything different. It complicates Wizard of Oz for me in ways that make me understand why Oz fans hate it so much!
“Re. fan fiction, I think it’s like any other “genre” — most of it is derivative, and a small proportion is brilliantly innovative. Which small proportion depends on how reader interacts with text, of course, so it’s going to be a different call for different readers. ;D I had that response to Erotic Romance when I first started reading it years ago — so much felt even MORE conventional than so-called regular Romance. As if the sexual freedom needed to be circumscribed even more strongly within a controlled space. When Megan Hart domesticated Elle and Dan from Dirty, I could hardly believe it!”
Yes, yes, yes. I would absolutely agree with all of this. The fanfiction example I gave was just the starting point for me – I come up against the same issue in many genres. And as I said, what many people see as very different…does not feel different to me. It can still be powerful, compelling, interesting, cracktastic to me, but the desire to see something different is still there. I realise this is because I’m a bit weird, but that can’t be helped!
“Re. Ashley, I think part of her genius (and yes, I think there’s a genius to what she’s doing) is her ability to mesh the familiar with the envelope-pushing.”
This is exactly what I think she does. And exactly what I’m advocating for here! She writes the familiar tropes, but in a different way. As you say: in an intimate way. I think that’s a great description – because there’s such a close, visceral, intensity that connects so well with the reader in Ashley’s work. And I think that way of telling the story helps sell the other elements you mention – the possible elements that readers might not otherwise like. It’s in the telling. You can convince a reader of so many things, in the telling. And if you’ve opened the door to them actually reading your book with a trope they’re familiar with. I wanted to write a submissive man, but knew that readers wouldn’t pick it up. So I made it a ménage, with the other hero as an alpha male. It sold ten times as many copies as my straight femdom book.
“Although 50 didn’t work for me personally, I think the reaction it caused in readers — the public declaration by women that they owned their sexual fantasies — was astonishing, and testimony to the fact that even heavily derivative tropes and devices can be renovated in provocative and powerful ways.”
Yessssssss! Exactly what I think.
I can see where you’re coming from, but I just can’t see past Return To Oz. I’m framing it from a completely different perspective – one in which Dorothy is almost tortured into never changing the reality within her. Into never going back, never even having a harmless fantasy, never being anything different. It complicates Wizard of Oz for me in ways that make me understand why Oz fans hate it so much!
I think the difference for me is that I see the two films as totally different texts, in part because they were made so far apart by completely different creative interpreters. But I can definitely see how viewing them as one continuous narrative would sour you on the original WoO. ;D
Yeah – because I think in Romance, often the goal is to find happiness in those areas. Home is the Oz, in Romance, to some extent. Not always, obviously – I’m wary of generalising – but a lot of the time. The power of home, of marriage, of love, of domesticity that goes beyond the repressive, retrogressive problems women actually often face (or have faced) in reality…that is the beauty (for me) of a romance novel. Especially of a good erotic romance novel, because with an erotic romance novel I feel like women can not only control that home space and make it something better, stronger, more loving, more wonderful, but can control the sexual space too. It’s why I love romance so much, because for me the idea of “home” in reality can be so…contentious? But in fantasy, it can be more. Which makes me feel your point more, if I’m getting anywhere close to the right idea.
There’s a lot here I need to think through, but I definitely agree that the “home” space in Romance is ideally a transformed space. I’m not sure I see it as the Oz space, necessarily, but I agree with your larger point about the rethinking of that space being very much a part of genre Romance (even if many books don’t actually do that or succeed at it).
I gave up on both the book series and the TV series years ago but one of my friends stuck with the books to the very bitter end. My friend cried at the end. And not the kind of tears you shed ala Dickens when Sydney Carton goes to this far far better place. My friend cried out of frustration and out of a sense of being betrayed by the author. She now feels like she has read these books “for nothing” all these years. This is not the kind of impression a writer should leave a reader with.
Ooh, good topic! I definitely think of my audience while I write. That’s why I read reviews. I like to find out what’s working (or not) and adjust accordingly. But it’s so hard to know which things to adjust. When I first started writing, I wasn’t even familiar with the term “slut-shaming.” One of my reviews said “this author doesn’t slut shame.” I was like, I don’t? Good for me! But then I recently tried to write a character who is free with herself sexually and got the opposite reaction.
I’ve seen other authors in similar situations. It seems like the attempt at risk taking or addressing a controversial topic is met with a wider range of interpretations than playing it safe.
I don’t know if I have an “ideal reader,” but there is a certain reviewer who represents a “typical” romance reader to me. I think about her comments and I want to win her over, as if she is a good general target. At the same time, I don’t want to shy away from touchy issues or add more traditional elements in an attempt to satisfy the masses. I guess I’m waiting for readers to come around to me, instead of going out to meet them. Maybe this is not a winning strategy. Who knows?