Who are your readers?

Screenwriting Tricks for Authors

I’ve gotten several related questions from unrelated people that have made me want to revisit the concept of the EXPERIENCE of your book or script.

I’ve written about this before, but I’m not sure I’ve been sufficiently persuasive about how important it is for you to -

Know what experience you are trying to create for your readers/ audience.

This post covers the Genre and Subgenre EXPERIENCE - and the promise you make to your readers when you write in a genre, with lots of examples. I really urge everyone to read it, and if you’ve already read it, read through it again. It’s not just important for you while you’re developing a premise and writing your first draft - it’s also hugely valuable when you are querying.

I’ve also gone more specifically into the experience I’ve committed to create for my readers in this post: Travel + Writing = Travel Writing

But besides reading or rereading those posts, how about looking at it from a different angle?

Ask yourself:

Why do your readers read?

First, who are your readers, anyway? This is a critical thing to know, and something you’re going to be asked by your publisher to outline in detail. But if you’re just starting out in your publishing career, you may not know how to answer that question. Later you’ll know because you’ll meet them – at bookstore events and at conferences, in conversations on social media when they get in touch, in emails that they send after reading one of your books, when they’re compelled to reach out and talk about what they’ve just read. All of which are a fantastic reward and some of the best reasons to get that book written.

But if you’re not at that stage of your career yet, you can answer this question by consulting your most important reader of all.

You.

Photo by Houcine Ncib on Unsplash

Why do you read? What do you love to read? What is that experience you crave like a drug, and that you are determined to create when you sit down to write a book? What authors consistently provide that experience for you?

I am currently on a Nicci French binge, which is easy to do because I have almost all of their books conveniently on my shelves. And I’ve read all of them multiple times. I have towering TBR piles in pretty much every room of the house, but I still go right back to Nicci French (and a few select others) when I need…

And here’s the key question : When I need WHAT? Exactly?

Answer the question. Write it out.

Right now I need the world to go away. I need a distinct female voice saying - this patriarchal. abusive horseshit is not on, and the men who perpetrate it should be in prison. I need no-BS female cops and investigators, with GOOD men on their side, solving crimes against women and children. and bringing the perpetrators down.

And I need that to be happening in a book world that is so sensorily detailed and so psychologically astute, so rivetingly suspenseful, that it makes this dystopian nightmare that we’re living in go away for a while so I can rest from the outrage and emerge to carry on.

Meditation, yoga and dance all help with that, too. So do playing the piano and Duolingo. I recommend them all. But still, there’s nothing like getting lost in a truly encompassing book.

Maybe I need a darker and more immersive experience from a book than you do. But you need to know what you, your first reader, WANT from the book you’re writing. That is the baseline of what your readers want from your book.

Nicci French tends to write more domestic mystery/thrillers than I do. But that core experience of powerful female leads going up against male violence, with the help of good men who are outraged by bad men, is exactly what I crave, and what I write.

So I’m encouraging you to -

• Make a Master List of ten or so books, focusing on books that give you the experience that you crave in a book.

• Use that list to write out exactly what it is in each book that makes it so compelling for you, and note what the core experiences are.

• Of course, file these lists in your Master Lists Book so you have them to refer to.

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Questions and requests!

I’ve gotten a couple of questions in the Comments recently that need more space to answer - and also that others of you writers here would benefit from.

Actually I think the entire conversation in the comments of this post is worth taking a look at, especially if you have a finished manuscript that you’re starting to query.

And I’ll take up the question about how to find current comps for your book in the next post.

I’ve also gotten requests for breakdowns of the movie adaptations of The Shining and Stand By Me. These happen to be two of my absolute favorite books/stories/films - and although I am far too overcommitted (and facing a June deadline) to do a full breakdown of anything right now, I will try to carve out some time to do an Act and Sequence Climax breakdown of at least one of them.

Hope everyone is doing what they need to do to survive the heat. It looks pretty scary.

—Alex

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