Let's talk about imagined audience.
Ask me a question! Because I missed you.
* * *
So, recently a couple people have got me thinking about the concept of "imagined audience." Let me say first that I hope if you write, fanfic or original, you do it for yourself. It's great to get fb, praise, and a dialogue going with readers, but seriously if the writing itself doesn't please you, go do something else forgodsakes. Mmmkay, now that that's over with, what is this imagined audience? Well, I'm defining it as a specific person or group about whom you're thinking when you write, and whose fb makes you feel you've accomplished your goal.
Because that definition feels a. amorphous and r. really really wrong for some reason, let me give an example. Not to toot my own horn but toot toot, it's about the las fic I wrote, Ten Things That Pull Apart And One Thing That Holds Together. Now, I wrote this fic first and foremost because I love B/A, and what I love about it is the idea of "love overcoming all obstacles" ; despite the fact that that idea is cliched, a deep fanciful part of me really wants me to believe it's true. So I wrote a fic about obstacles to see whether I thought love could overcome them (for those of you who are curious, I'm unsure of the results. Half the time writing that fic, I thought: "B/A would never work." The other half I thought, "love is like oxygen love gives you wings all you need is love /Moulin Rouge"). So, let's hear another mmmkay, because that's my motivation for writing it and it was for myself first and foremost, but I did on occasion think about who would be reading, and that's what I'm calling my "imagined audience".
A large part of my imagined audience were the people with whom I've listened to and discussed B/A who don't think the 'ship is feasible, practical, or realistic. A lot of people who don't prefer B/A as a 'ship think it's a puppy love, or a juvenile love, or a fairytale love, that was never meant to last or never meant to be. I wanted to respond to those people by saying, "In reality, this couple would have these types of problems. But it doesn't make their love any less real."
To narrow it down, the idea for this fic was actually a specific response to some people who replied directly to, or spoke of elsewhere, this post about what B/A means to me. There were at least two specific responses that were very respectful toward my feelings about B/A, but mentioned that I hadn't really addressed some of the issues that might arise with the 'ship post NFA (particularly issues that had to do with both Buffy and Angel being very alpha personalities). I wanted to respond to those people by saying, "Thses are the issues that would arise post NFA, and this is how they would deal with it. It might not be perfect, and it might not even work, but the love that's there is what I love about the 'ship."
To narrow it down even further, when I was writing the fic, I kept asking myself, "but what would germaine_pet say?" I think Lynne is a terrific writer; one of the best short piece writers I've ever read period, fanfic or not. I also happen to know that she doesn't prefer to read about B/A, that the 'ship just doesn't appeal to her. She has mentioned several times various reasons why she thinks they're better off and more interesting as characters not together post-NFA. I wanted to take into consideration the things she's said over the months I've known her, and use that to really fully examine what I thought about B/A. Mostly, I wanted her or someone who feels as she does to be able to read it and say, "Yeah, these are the issues I think this couple would have. And yeah, the way you've presented this, I can see where you're coming from about B/A standing a chance, even if I don't agree."
The other thing about thinking about Lynne reading this piece, is she and several other fic authors whom I really respect have said that sometimes while my ideas are good and the words are really interesting, the prose gets convoluted and obscures what I'm trying to say. So, in efforts to make the writing more precise and elegant, I limited myself to exactly 300 words per section. It wasn't about making Lynne say, "Wow, 300 words!" or "Hey, you almost managed not to get bogged down!"--it was about me improving my writing. But in the effort of doing so, I kept imagining Lynne as beta saying, "TKP, you don't need that bit." Sometimes I said, "hey, shut up, Lynne," but sometimes I listened.
The end of this little anecdote is I finished the story, and just plain didn't want to tinker with it any more. I had done what I wanted and felt satisfied. But when I posted the story, I began to wonder whether it'd worked or not or whether I should've waited or worked harder. But then I got fb from Lynne, and it was pretty much like a reassurance that yeah, my work there was done. It's not a perfect story; it's not as good as it could be--but it's what I wanted to do. The same thing happened double when stultiloquentia fb'ed--she's a fabulous writer who writes fabulous B/S. We've discussed on and off the merits and B/A and why it does or doesn't appeal to us, or how we think the 'ship worked. So when she said I'd addressed arguments she might've brought up against the 'ship, I was all, "yay! I wrote it for people like you, baby!" Stulti has also mentioned how my words tend to get cuaght up in themselves, and she said I'd done a good job with that this time, so triple yay!
There are other aspects to imagined audience. In the case described above, I was making a specific case for a specific 'ship for people who don't necessarily 'ship that way. But the idea of writing specifically for 'shippers has been discussed at length: for instance, S/X fics that don't explain the why or wherefores of Spike and Xander getting together, and so are mainly only accessible to people who already 'ship them.
Often, imagined audience has nothing to do with 'ship. For instance, just to show you what an arrogant prick inside-out-prick I am, I wrote Blood Types because I'd just read several stylistic, poetic, very formatted pieces that everyone was fawing over and I myself thought they were absolute crap, so I wrote a piece that I felt was all three but that I also felt was good stuff. My imagined audience were the same people who were fawning over those other pieces.
Sometimes, you're not trying to prove anything to an imagined audience, you're just writing something you think they'd like. I wrote Down There In The Reeperbahn thinking of a few people whose fics and meta I'd read who seemed to be really into the patterns and echos in AtS, Angel's life, and especially Connor's place in all that. Sometimes when I'm working on Best Souvenir I just think of my beta, a2zmom, and whether she would say, "but that doesn't make sense" or not. And there are certain people who, every single time, I think, "dude, if they liked this, I'd feel all tingely, just because it's them." That's usually writers I really respect--two of whom I've already mentioned: stultiloquentia and germaine_pet.
So, the point.
-What fics have you written with imaginary audiences in mind? Why?
-What's a group that's been your imaginary audience?
-Who's a person who's been your imaginary audience? (and name names, people. I was shy to say germaine_pet at first because for a moment she was an imaginary audience for this post, and I imagined her saying, "Dude, that TKP is a suck up! Plus she stalks me and I think she smells. Also now if I don't fb does that make me a bad person? WHAT IS HER CHILDHOOD TRAUMA?" But I totally sucked it up, and suspected Lynne could handle it, too.)
-Is there a particular person or group who is often your imaginary audience, and if so, who are they?
-Who's that person who's fb you often or always think about when you write, and against your better judgment and confidence in yourself, feel kinda vindicated when you get?
-Who's your imagined unaudience? Who have you hoped would never read what you've written? Besides your mom and that skeevy guy you saw once at Wal-Mart who followed you for a full ten minutes and got some of his guano on your shoe, are there sometimes people on lj who you hope might skip on by such and such fic? Ever write something knowing so and so will dislike it, and hope they don't read it and think less of your writing for it?
* * *
So, recently a couple people have got me thinking about the concept of "imagined audience." Let me say first that I hope if you write, fanfic or original, you do it for yourself. It's great to get fb, praise, and a dialogue going with readers, but seriously if the writing itself doesn't please you, go do something else forgodsakes. Mmmkay, now that that's over with, what is this imagined audience? Well, I'm defining it as a specific person or group about whom you're thinking when you write, and whose fb makes you feel you've accomplished your goal.
Because that definition feels a. amorphous and r. really really wrong for some reason, let me give an example. Not to toot my own horn but toot toot, it's about the las fic I wrote, Ten Things That Pull Apart And One Thing That Holds Together. Now, I wrote this fic first and foremost because I love B/A, and what I love about it is the idea of "love overcoming all obstacles" ; despite the fact that that idea is cliched, a deep fanciful part of me really wants me to believe it's true. So I wrote a fic about obstacles to see whether I thought love could overcome them (for those of you who are curious, I'm unsure of the results. Half the time writing that fic, I thought: "B/A would never work." The other half I thought, "love is like oxygen love gives you wings all you need is love /Moulin Rouge"). So, let's hear another mmmkay, because that's my motivation for writing it and it was for myself first and foremost, but I did on occasion think about who would be reading, and that's what I'm calling my "imagined audience".
A large part of my imagined audience were the people with whom I've listened to and discussed B/A who don't think the 'ship is feasible, practical, or realistic. A lot of people who don't prefer B/A as a 'ship think it's a puppy love, or a juvenile love, or a fairytale love, that was never meant to last or never meant to be. I wanted to respond to those people by saying, "In reality, this couple would have these types of problems. But it doesn't make their love any less real."
To narrow it down, the idea for this fic was actually a specific response to some people who replied directly to, or spoke of elsewhere, this post about what B/A means to me. There were at least two specific responses that were very respectful toward my feelings about B/A, but mentioned that I hadn't really addressed some of the issues that might arise with the 'ship post NFA (particularly issues that had to do with both Buffy and Angel being very alpha personalities). I wanted to respond to those people by saying, "Thses are the issues that would arise post NFA, and this is how they would deal with it. It might not be perfect, and it might not even work, but the love that's there is what I love about the 'ship."
To narrow it down even further, when I was writing the fic, I kept asking myself, "but what would germaine_pet say?" I think Lynne is a terrific writer; one of the best short piece writers I've ever read period, fanfic or not. I also happen to know that she doesn't prefer to read about B/A, that the 'ship just doesn't appeal to her. She has mentioned several times various reasons why she thinks they're better off and more interesting as characters not together post-NFA. I wanted to take into consideration the things she's said over the months I've known her, and use that to really fully examine what I thought about B/A. Mostly, I wanted her or someone who feels as she does to be able to read it and say, "Yeah, these are the issues I think this couple would have. And yeah, the way you've presented this, I can see where you're coming from about B/A standing a chance, even if I don't agree."
The other thing about thinking about Lynne reading this piece, is she and several other fic authors whom I really respect have said that sometimes while my ideas are good and the words are really interesting, the prose gets convoluted and obscures what I'm trying to say. So, in efforts to make the writing more precise and elegant, I limited myself to exactly 300 words per section. It wasn't about making Lynne say, "Wow, 300 words!" or "Hey, you almost managed not to get bogged down!"--it was about me improving my writing. But in the effort of doing so, I kept imagining Lynne as beta saying, "TKP, you don't need that bit." Sometimes I said, "hey, shut up, Lynne," but sometimes I listened.
The end of this little anecdote is I finished the story, and just plain didn't want to tinker with it any more. I had done what I wanted and felt satisfied. But when I posted the story, I began to wonder whether it'd worked or not or whether I should've waited or worked harder. But then I got fb from Lynne, and it was pretty much like a reassurance that yeah, my work there was done. It's not a perfect story; it's not as good as it could be--but it's what I wanted to do. The same thing happened double when stultiloquentia fb'ed--she's a fabulous writer who writes fabulous B/S. We've discussed on and off the merits and B/A and why it does or doesn't appeal to us, or how we think the 'ship worked. So when she said I'd addressed arguments she might've brought up against the 'ship, I was all, "yay! I wrote it for people like you, baby!" Stulti has also mentioned how my words tend to get cuaght up in themselves, and she said I'd done a good job with that this time, so triple yay!
There are other aspects to imagined audience. In the case described above, I was making a specific case for a specific 'ship for people who don't necessarily 'ship that way. But the idea of writing specifically for 'shippers has been discussed at length: for instance, S/X fics that don't explain the why or wherefores of Spike and Xander getting together, and so are mainly only accessible to people who already 'ship them.
Often, imagined audience has nothing to do with 'ship. For instance, just to show you what an arrogant prick inside-out-prick I am, I wrote Blood Types because I'd just read several stylistic, poetic, very formatted pieces that everyone was fawing over and I myself thought they were absolute crap, so I wrote a piece that I felt was all three but that I also felt was good stuff. My imagined audience were the same people who were fawning over those other pieces.
Sometimes, you're not trying to prove anything to an imagined audience, you're just writing something you think they'd like. I wrote Down There In The Reeperbahn thinking of a few people whose fics and meta I'd read who seemed to be really into the patterns and echos in AtS, Angel's life, and especially Connor's place in all that. Sometimes when I'm working on Best Souvenir I just think of my beta, a2zmom, and whether she would say, "but that doesn't make sense" or not. And there are certain people who, every single time, I think, "dude, if they liked this, I'd feel all tingely, just because it's them." That's usually writers I really respect--two of whom I've already mentioned: stultiloquentia and germaine_pet.
So, the point.
-What fics have you written with imaginary audiences in mind? Why?
-What's a group that's been your imaginary audience?
-Who's a person who's been your imaginary audience? (and name names, people. I was shy to say germaine_pet at first because for a moment she was an imaginary audience for this post, and I imagined her saying, "Dude, that TKP is a suck up! Plus she stalks me and I think she smells. Also now if I don't fb does that make me a bad person? WHAT IS HER CHILDHOOD TRAUMA?" But I totally sucked it up, and suspected Lynne could handle it, too.)
-Is there a particular person or group who is often your imaginary audience, and if so, who are they?
-Who's that person who's fb you often or always think about when you write, and against your better judgment and confidence in yourself, feel kinda vindicated when you get?
-Who's your imagined unaudience? Who have you hoped would never read what you've written? Besides your mom and that skeevy guy you saw once at Wal-Mart who followed you for a full ten minutes and got some of his guano on your shoe, are there sometimes people on lj who you hope might skip on by such and such fic? Ever write something knowing so and so will dislike it, and hope they don't read it and think less of your writing for it?