When someone becomes a writer, it is expected that there is going to be an audience waiting to read their work. Almost all writings will have an audience, whether it’s a magazine, a text, or a full length book, but the thing about audiences that people don’t understand is how important they are to the writer’s work. It may seem out in the open already, but the feedback we receive from our audiences is a key aspect for defining how we write our future work.
As an example for pleasing an audience, if I were to write a story with no intention at the moment of release for making a second, and my audience loves my work and wants a continuation of that story, I would consider pleasing my audience and making that continuation. Not only is the purpose of the audience to be addressed, but to inspire the writer to improve their previous work or make new work growing off of their previous successions. This role that the audience possesses is not only important to the writer, but important to future audiences. If a writer is inspired by their audience to create better work, not only will their current audience be joyed once again, but word will spread and your audience will grow even larger. All writers learn new things the more they write, whether it’s because of their audience or a result of trial and error. This concept can be explained even deeper on page 59 of “Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies.”
An audience can be best described as a campfire. If my writing is all the supplied wood I use, and me lighting it with a match is the equivalent to me posting my writing for all to see, the fire I started is my audience reading the work I had created. Just like a fire, an audience needs to be maintained in order to stay alive and grow. If the writer creates the audience, they need to continue to please that audience if they wish to keep it. In order for a writer to keep their audience, they want to engage their readers with the work they’ve given to them. Whether it’s a shocking fact or a question that the audience wants to see an answer for, you can use these tools as a hook that reels in current and future viewers. This is emphasized in “How to Engage the Reader: Writing Techniques That Work” by Mary White.
A writer’s work determines what their fanbase will be, whether the genre is horror, comedy, action, or drama. The writer grows with their audience the more they create, and if the writer wants to keep on growing, they need to make sure that what they are creating still appeals to their main audience that their journey started with.
