Yesterday I briefly mentioned the subject of writing for the audience and promised that I'd go into more detail about it. There's not a lot of detail that needs exploring. Basically, the idea is that you write for yourself and then hope that other people like it too. You never ever start the process by trying to figure out what the readers want first.
Not only will that cause you to fail artistically, it's a stupid task because readers don't know themselves what they want. Oh, they think they do. But they don't. That's why I love the attitude that the Grey's Anatomy writers take towards their fans:
"...we read your comments – maybe not all of them but a lot of them – and sometimes we use them as a jumping off place for discussion in the room. Like, 'A lot of fans don’t like this character right now. Why is that?' ... Our discussions that are prompted by your feedback often lead us down interesting paths, but they never end with us going, 'Yeah, some of the fans don’t like that, we should just stop it.' Ever. Because it’s our to keep you on the edge of your seats, it’s our job to inspire you to write us in a feverish rage, it’s our job to sometimes piss you off and hopefully, always, to keep you coming back for more. "
No comments:
Post a Comment