Post History
Let me expand on @Cyn's answer. Tolkien wrote for himself. He was sure there would never be an audience for the Silamrillion, and was surprised by the wide acclaim of The Lord of the Rings. So wer...
Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-12T21:57:35Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42746 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T11:03:26Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42746 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Let me expand on @Cyn's answer. Tolkien wrote for himself. He was sure there would never be an audience for the _Silamrillion_, and was surprised by the wide acclaim of _The Lord of the Rings_. So were the critics, by the way. What happened is, Tolkien wanted to read a certain thing. Because it wasn't to be found, he went and wrote it. (Note that 'fantasy' didn't even exist as a genre back then.) Because it was this new thing, critics didn't know what to make of it, and the public only found out that yes, they did in fact want this, after the thing was written. So, from that perspective, write what you want, the audience will be found later. At the same time, you need to stay aware of the general age group you're writing for. Your tone, your vocabulary, your content would all be influenced by whether you're writing for a child or an adult.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2019-02-28T12:18:07Z (about 5 years ago)
Original score: 5