Here is a question: for whom do you write?
If you’re like Sonya Hartnett – “…I write only for me, and
for the few people I hope to please, and I write for the story.” (read article
here) – your initial answer might be ‘for me’, and if you’re writing a journal
entry, or a missive designed for catharsis (which will be ceremonially burnt on
completion), or a piece of story that you have no intention of sharing with
another living soul, ever, or if you are
Sonya Hartnett, then that may be true. If, on the other hand, you are writing
to have your words – whether fiction and non-fiction – read at some point, then
you’re writing for an audience.
Understanding who your intended audience is can be
advantageous when writing. More importantly, keeping in mind that you are
writing for a reader can help you to be a more generous writer.
Writing for an
Intended Audience:
Considering who we are writing for is an important guide
point for our fiction (or non-fiction). At times, an audience may be general in
nature (gender/age non-defined), or we might find ourselves writing for a
specific group: children, young adults, women, men, or any of the dozens of
sub-groups that fall within these categories. Writing for each of these
audiences requires thought on our behalf to ensure that our target reader
receives a story that they will find satisfying (e.g. one that scares the
bejeezus out of them, or makes them laugh like loons, or feel giddy with the
romance of it all). If we’re writing for children or YA audiences, there is a
range of criterion that our work will need to meet in order to, firstly, get
past the gatekeepers (that is, publishers) and, secondly, impress our young
readers. Here are a few websites that discuss what would-be writers of
children’s fiction should consider:
Considering our audience is also important
when we’re writing for a specific publication or competition. There is no point
sending a romance story to the online horror magazine, Nightmare – unless there’s a dark, dark twist, of course – they
won’t publish it, and we’ve wasted our time and theirs. Likewise, when we’re
writing for competitions; we must think about the potential audience.
I learnt
this lesson the hard way when I wrote a story for a competition in a magazine
that had a rural-inclined audience. My story explored intergenerational
relationships and notions of love across times, and was woven with literary
allusions related to the specified theme of ‘South.’ I really liked this story,
and still do, but it didn’t even get a look in. The story that won was about a
farmer’s wife giving birth on her kitchen floor while her husband built a fence
down in yonder paddock. What was my mistake? Not reading previous winners, and
not considering the readership of the magazine. A little bit of research and
knowing our purpose can go a long way to helping us succeed as writers.
Being clear in our head about who we
are writing for assists with clear and engaging writing. Although Sonya
Hartnett claims to only write for herself, she is also aware of the type of
audience who will be reading her work. “Would a portion of audience actually
prefer me to write of boy meeting girl, boy getting girl, boy losing girl? If
so, then that portion of my audience is not my audience." Hartnett writes
stark, beautiful, engrossing and challenging stories, and she pulls no punches
with her words, and that’s cool because she understands her audience and where
she wants to take them through her work.
Writing
for a Specific Reader:
Like many great writers, Hartnett is
generous writer. A generous writer is one who seeks to deepen the reader
experience of a story, who takes them below the surface of the words and helps
them to encounter the meaning in and purpose of their writing. There are many
ways to be generous in our writing. Eileen explored one – symbolism – in her
last post, but there are numerous other devices that we, as writers, can employ
to engage and assist our readers. Visit http://literary-devices.com/ or http://literarydevices.net/ for an
extensive list of literary techniques and their use in fiction. Four of my
favourite literary devices are: foreshadowing, irony, repetition and literary
allusion.
Foreshadowing:
Most literary devices are a win-win game that generous writers
play with their readers. In foreshadowing, we weave clues to a future event or
revelation into our plot, thus driving suspense, and lending veracity and
naturalness to the moment when it arrives. Astute readers will have an ‘aha!’
experience as they connect the dots. Here is an example of foreshadowing from
the brilliant Shirley Jackson story, The
Lottery:
The morning of June twenty-seven was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square…The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones…
The beauty of the day, the innocence of the children, and
their simple act of gathering stones are clues about the events to come and
serve to deepen the horror the reader feels as the intention of the Lottery is
revealed.
Irony:
One of the lessons I took from my university lecturers was
to never underestimate the intelligence of my reader. Irony is a device that allows
a writer to excite a reader’s intelligence with the clever, comical or searing
use of word play. Irony can be verbal, situational, or dramatic (or a
combination of all three), and develops in the space between the implied
meaning and the literal meaning, or what is expected and what actually occurs. A classic example of irony is evident in the climatic final sentence of Richard
Matheson’s, Button Button (and as a
special treat watch The Button for an
overdose of comical irony).
Repetition:
When editing creative work, one of the most frequent
comments I make is to avoid repetition – of words, actions, gestures, dialogue
tags, ideas, settings, punctuation etc. This kind of repetition is unplanned,
and is particularly obvious in short stories. Intentional repetition, however, is clever, integrated, and always adds to the work at a thematic level.
There are numerous types of repetition (visit http://www.literarydevices.com/repetition/ for further info and examples), which can instil deeper
layers of meaning in a story (and poetry, of course). A classic example
repetition appears in Edgar Allen Poe’s, The
Tell Tale Heart, which employs the technique to intensify the conflict,
drama and tension, and to give the writing a
When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without
hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little – a very, very little
crevice in the lantern. So I opened it – you cannot imagine how stealthily,
stealthily – until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of the spider,
shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture eye…
Literary Allusion:
This is one of my favourite generous writing devices, which
I often employ in my stories, and look for in the fiction and films in which I
immerse myself. Literary allusion occurs when a writer makes a brief reference
to another thing of cultural significance. This could be anything from literature,
art, music, historic events or people, mythology, philosophy, or architecture. The
point of allusion is to deepen the meaning of the principle work through
association with relevant secondary texts. That sounds complicated but, in
reality, we use literary allusion every day:
Common Allusions:
Beautiful women were her Achilles’
heel (Greek mythology).
He thinks he’s Romeo but
she’ll never be his Juliet
(Shakespeare).
They’ve sent another Trojan
into the system (Greek mythology).
I wouldn’t waste my time asking for a loan. He’s as tight as Ebenezer Scrooge (A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens).
Everybody wants fifteen minutes
of fame, even if it means looking like an idiot on YouTube (Andy Warhol).
They also appear in commercials, and in many of our favourite films.
Good examples of literary allusions are in the Madagascar franchise, Small
Soldiers (1998), and in a recent example, Pacific Rim, which gives nods to the old Godzilla films, Frankenstein, and the work of Ray
Bradbury, and includes this allusion to Star
Wars IV:
 |
by Zennie Abraham [on Flickr]
|
and from the Star
Wars original:
 |
| by Insomnia Cured Here [Flickr] |
Literary allusions in film are fun,
and can deepen meaning, or help the viewer connect to the characters, events or
setting. The same is true in writing. Referring to other literary works that
reflect our story’s preoccupations adds layers of meaning and can be intriguing
for the reader. For example, if you were writing an anti-war novel, you might
refer to classic anti-war novels such as All
Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque), Farewell
to Arms (Hemingway), The Thin Red
Line (Jones), On the Beach (Shute) or Slaughterhouse Five (Vonnegut).
A word of caution: Literary allusion
is brief, and may include the mention of a title, or a line or two from a work
(however, be careful with lyrics), or reference to a character without
incurring a copyright penalty/fee. If longer sections of a works are used,
copyright permission must be sort from the holder of the copyright. We’ll write
more about this in the future; for now, keep allusions brief and make sure to
acknowledge from where the idea, character, words etc. have originated.
The abovementioned techniques are fun
to play with and add wonderful, subtle and nuanced layers to a work. They also take
the experience of the reader into consideration, and try to deepen their
engagement with a story, exciting their intelligence and giving them something
to ponder when they finish your work. This is the gift of storytelling, given
by writers with generous hearts.
So, for whom do you write?
Maria
