Should I be myself and write what I really want, even though it isn't getting much traction?

Change what you really want!

If writing only for yourself pleases you or is cathartic or mentally soothing, then write for yourself.

However, if you wish to be an author that sells books, you need to change yourself to somebody that realizes people buy writing because they find it entertaining, so you need to find something that you enjoy that is also entertaining to others.

For background; I am a professor, and I consider teachers to be changing minds, and I consider education (for myself) to be changing my mind. Both, literally speaking, learning establishes new neural pathways and new understandings and even changes neurons and physically encodes memories. If a professor of mine did their job, then the brain I walked out of their class with, at the end of the semester, is physically different (and better) than the brain I walked into their class with on the first day of the semester.

So when I say "change yourself" and "change what you really want" I mean literally, educate yourself enough to understand what people like to read, and what kind of writing they like. Then, apply your intellect and creativity toward making something fun for YOU to write and simultaneously fun for THEM to read. That is a pretty straightforward problem, and it doesn't take a genius-level IQ to solve it.

This is the entertainment business, and if what you write is only entertaining to YOU, then you are into a hobby, not a business.

Teach yourself to write at a fifth or sixth grade level; or more generally, simply and using words you think an average 11 year old would understand. If you write for adults with curse words, you can add sexual understandings to the mix without exceeding the reading level. If you have a pretentious character, you can use words the average person wouldn't get, but always use them in places where a failure to understand a word by the reader will not impair their entertainment. (e.g. another character could explain the word, or request clarification; "WTF Jerry? Do you want a sandwich or not?"

Don't think that this is "dumbing down" your story, explaining things in simple language does not mean your story is dumb, or your plot is simple, or your characters are stupid. Writing with 99.9% words the audience instantly understands increases and sustains the reverie of reading. Using a word they don't understand or aren't sure of will interrupt that reverie, and break the entertainment. Do it often enough and they give up on the reading, because they don't think the author is a good writer, they think the writing is pretentious and intentionally opaque.

Writing fiction is an exercise in assisting the imagination of the reader, providing the creativity and imagery they need. If you are the only reader, use the words and imagery that resonates with you. If you don't want to BE the only reader, then write to entertain others, and let your ideas and imagination sell the story, don't rely on fancy words and complex sentence structures and obscure allusions.

Don't write for teen girls if you can't think of a story for them that you personally find entertaining and compelling. Only write something you believe can be a great story. But re-educate yourself so that you can believe that "a great story" can be written at a fifth grade reading level. Even if read by adults.

The site lexile will analyze up to 1000 words of text for free, and give you a "level" score. (you have to register, but it is free.) They also can show you a score for the entirety of existing books by title or all the books for an author; JK Rowling and Dan Brown books tend to score in the 880 range, Stephen King has several books at that level, with a few scoring higher.

I have to think the bestsellers are telling great and compelling stories, in relatively simple language that most readers buying fiction can understand. If you want to be in the business, do what they do: Write great stories in simple language.

posted almost 6 years ago

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Amadeus‭

3156 reputation 2 1399 613 37

Edit: since I posted this answer, the OP has expanded their question to state the interest is in whether one should dumb down in the choice of genre. That is not what I expected herein. I hope what appears below will be of use to future readers interested in the more general question implied in the title. I also think it's relevant, in general logic if not in examples discussed, to the genre issue now raised.

Should I be myself?

Yes.

The only alternative is trying to write like someone else, and you'd fail, not because they're better but because they're different. Never mind the specific things authors get praise for, either as individuals or in the aggregate; you can't even mimic the pattern of their vocabulary. Ben Blatt has shown authors each have their own vocabulary fingerprint, which is why Nabokov overused "mauve" so much.

Besides, what does any reader or viewer want from the fiction they consume? They want something they've never encountered.

Should I write what I really want?

Yes and no.

On the one hand, it has to be something you can bring yourself to write. If you hate it, what makes you think anyone else will like it? On the other hand, we all have to make compromises. Any number of authors have admitted to liking their most popular work a lot less than the public does. Sometimes they write something for money. That's where A Christmas Carol came from. The real question isn't what you want and what everyone else wants, and which of the two you should go with; both are surprisingly flexible. The question is what can you bring that other people don't?

Even though it isn't getting much traction?

Of course it isn't.

There's no way to write, none at all, that gives you a good chance of getting traction. No-one has the secret to being conventionally published, or to being a bestseller. That's not to say there aren't things you should avoid doing because they'll make your chances even worse. Writing guides are full of time-tested observations we ignore at our peril. (We can break a few "rules", but we need to know what we're getting ourselves into; that's what all the best writers have done.) But if you're going to make changes to gain more traction, they need to be things you can do well enough it doesn't backfire, despite styming what makes you you. I'm sorry that's not very specific, but it can't be. Every writer has to figure out for themselves what about them can change.

Should I dumb down my writing?

That depends what's "smart" about it; ask your beta readers.

• Maybe you speak like a thesaurus; don't do that. (Well, you might be able to make it work for one character, but not your narration.) If your writing is "eloquent" in some other sense, it's probably in the good sense of using your vocabulary well, not in the most abstruse way you can. What I mean is your words need to flow the right way; have the right show-don't-tell effects; move the reader the way you want, etc.
  • Related to that point, maybe your writing is hard to read because of its grammar or syntax, rather than the words themselves. (Again, this gets into eloquence; so does the point below.) In my experience, readers have objected to my work at times for all these reasons. It's definitely something one has to fix. What I found helpful was to review every sentence over 25 words for how, if at all, it can be improved. Maybe it should be split; maybe it needs to lose words that don't do anything; maybe it shouldn't be there at all. It varies, but you learn a lot from considering them.
• Maybe your prose is purple; if so, that might be fine, because on the one hand it can be too purple but on the other hand it can be too beige.
• Maybe you try to make your story do what your teacher said fiction does, to have a polemical message. If you really want to do that, that's fine, but do it right. The best examples don't have a character tell us the right view; they have a character go on the kind of experiential journey that would make a person feel that way.
• Or maybe the smarts are in your imaginativeness. That's probably the least dangerous kind of smart your writing can have. People want to see something new. That's not to say the most imaginative plot or character or setting you can invent will be popular with other people. It's hit and miss. All writing is hit and miss.

Should I pander to what I think most people like to read?

That's up to you.

What do you think they like to read? Or watch; remember, scriptwriters are authors too. I'd hate it if we ended up in a world where every new film is, "Supervillains 911 a city, then superheroes punch them into defeat." Especially if both sides do it with coloured CGI energy balls. Is it popular? Sure, but we need diverse stories. Luckily, I think we'll keep getting them from every medium, because every writer is better- or worse-suited to this and that niche, and we're all different. I can't tell you what you're best off writing; in fact, you can't even do that at first. You'll have to write a good few stories before you know what you're good at. But I suspect one day you'll find you can write all sorts of things well, as long as you feel the urge to write something like that.

posted almost 6 years ago

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J.G.‭

320 reputation 5 39 58 0

I like to compare writing to other jobs:

• Chef in a Restaurant: Should you serve your customers what they like to eat, or should you cook what you like and eat it yourself?

• Architect: Should you build the house that the owner wants to live in, or the house that you want to live in?

Ideally, your personal taste coincides with the taste of a large enough market segment for you to make a living. Artists (and cooks and architects) who like what the masses like can become rich and famous.

But usually when someone asks this question, they have found that what they enjoy is at worst unpublishable and at best a small niche and won't pay enough for them to do it full time.

It is a basic fact of live that most people will have to spend most of their working lives doing things they wouldn't do if they had the choice. In this, a writing career is no different than a career as an accountant or carpenter. You can choose a job that comes as close as possible to what you like to do, but you will always have to work on things you don't enjoy.

So what you can do is either:

1. Work a job you dislike and write what you like as a hobby.

2. Write what sells.

There is a third option, but this requires extreme networking and marketing skills, above average good looks, an outgoing, likeable personality, and probably a good portion of luck:

3. Write what you like and sell it.

posted almost 6 years ago

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System‭

3226 reputation 147 215 553 0

Do you think teenage girls are too stupid to know when they're being pandered to?

Do you think publishers of young adult fiction would not notice that an author is not familiar with the genre and looks down on it?

If you are familiar with more than one genre and good at it then, sure, you might want to focus your attention on writing a book in the genre more likely to sell well, even if it's not your first choice. That could give you enough cache to publish the books you prefer to write later on.

As someone who is actually writing a young adult (middle-grade) novel employing magical realism and lots of strong female characters because I want to and love the genre, your question makes my skin crawl.

Write what makes you happy. Write what you can do well. Make choices to increase the likelihood of being published or to increase sales after publications but stay within the works you can do well and enjoy.

posted almost 6 years ago

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Cyn‭

1130 reputation 25 439 215 0