Just curious, I guess.
Do you write stories for you and hope others will like them, or do you write for them and get your pleasure from their response?
Thoughtful of Dublin

Both, I think - the challenge is to find something that I really, really want to write, which will also be something others want to read, and THEN to write it in a way which makes the most of that overlap.

But at bottom, having others respond is always going to be the crowning pleasure: the fact that you've communicated what you're wanting to express.

Depends whether i want to sell them to a particular market or not.

If i'm entering a comp, i write to suit myself - if i'm writing for a particular woman's mag, i tailor the story for what i think the reader (or rather editor!) will like.

Interesting Gaius.

For me writing is always about communication. I have an idea I'm trying to get across and inorder to do that well I have to understand and repsect the reader.

As such I can't possibly just write what I fancy. For me that would a. be disrespectful to the reader and b. completely defeat what I'm trying to do.

HB x

Both for me, too.

Sometimes I've started writing a story with an ice cold, cynical heart ("I'll write a competition slayer now") and found that by the time I've finished I really like it personally. I don't think I can write anything that I don't care about in some way.

One thing I would never do is put something into a story that I had written for myself just in order to make it more acceptable to a market.

I've written stories eg about bereavement, and drawn on my own experience/feelings, and written them how i've wanted, couldn't write them any other way etc. And i've found those stories have done well (eg in comps) so they have obviously resonated with readers, without my consciously making an effort for them to do so. Sometimes it's nice like that, if the stakes aren't too high, to not think about the reader's needs at all (as long as i am effectively communicating what i want to.

But if you are writing for any particular market, and hope to earn money from your writing, then i don't think most writers can simply write what they want.

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and i have no problem writing to suit a market if it pays the bills!

Sometimes I've started writing a story with an ice cold, cynical heart ("I'll write a competition slayer now") and found that by the time I've finished I really like it personally.

This is the one which I think is sooooo interesting, because we tend to assume that you start with a wonderful idea/urge to communicate/passionate story to tell.... and then you go coolly about expressing it as well and communicatively as possible.

But I agree that sometimes you can start at the technical end, and end up with something which really, really works. One of my most successful stories started out purely as an exercise in moving point of view, which I hadn't tried up till then. Indeed, I think it was partly the fact that I wasn't trying to do anything more high-minded than that, which made it work. And although I'm not sure I could decide to write a competition-slayer, partly because I don't enter much in the way of competitions, I can imagine deciding (as with any decision about any genre) that there are certain boxes it should tick.

So I don't have a problem at all with writing to order - either as a principle, or in putting it into action. But I do know that my very best writing happens when I can and do approach the whole problem of this story in a much more open-minded way.

I had a very interesting case - almost a control experiment - when I got a place on a workshop with Ali Smith. She set an assignment to write a short story with a particular title, and send it in beforehand, so she could do a one-to-one on it, and then after some workshoppy stuff, she set us going on writing a new story while she did the one-to-ones, using one of our own prompts. And because I felt I'd been writing to order a lot lately (partly because in a novel you sort-of have to), I deliberately let it be whatever it was and go wherever it went.

The one I wrote beforehand is successful. It works. She liked it very much. *smug face*. But the other one is actually properly special - to me, at least. It has (for me, compared to the other one) that kind of resonance - that sense of a whole world and sense of human existence beyond the boundaries of the words - which I look for in shorts, particularly. And it's not just me - my writers' circle of the time felt the same way about the two of them.

One of the reasons that I write novels is that there's enough space and complexity in a novel that - just occasionally - I manage to integrate those two different ways that fiction works. I haven't yet discovered how to do that in shorts, but at least, after Ali's workshop, I'm back to knowing the second kind is possible...


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Apologies for the long post. As I'm sure you can tell, I wasn't really posting, what I was really doing was Not Marking Assignments...

To begin with, I am just looking for an idea that I get excited about. Then I try to write the hell out of it and hopefully, someone else will enjoy it.

Also, I find my desire to please other will vary depending on what I am writing. If I write something light hearted and comedic, I probably think a little more about my potential audience.

If I am writing something somber, then I just focus on writing it as true (as Hemingway would say) as I can.

If I am writing something somber, then I just focus on writing it as true (as Hemingway would say) as I can.

Yes, i can relate to that, Fictionfan.

The issue of whether I would please a reader just doesn't seem to enter my head as much, you know.

For me writing is always about communication. I have an idea I'm trying to get across and inorder to do that well I have to understand and repsect the reader.

This is closest to me, I think. Or thought... But often the one I am communicating to _is_ me. Often the idea I am communicating has little to do with the apparent story also. Not sure; I was just looking at things of mine other people "get" versus the ones they don't. Still can't work out a pattern.

When I started out it was just for me. Now, as Emma says, it's a combination. Essentially, I want my writing to be enjoyed by readers other than myself. But the two needn't be in competition - after all, there are lots of readers like me in the world.

there are lots of readers like me in the world.

Ah, it must be lovely to feel like that. The thing - the one real awful horrible thing - that writing has taught me is that there aren't enough readers like me in the world.

Leila - I agree, it need not be a competition. Often the two will merge, which is always a joy no?
HB x