October 21, 2019
Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?
It’s a trap! I started to compose my answer and realized I was on the path to insulting authors who are different than me. So here we are, stuck.
Because the two are not mutually exclusive- a good author can be both. I haven’t been that gifted or that lucky.
I strive for both, with some caveats. We’ll talk about that later.
When I first attempted to write a book, I wasn’t worried if I was doing it right. I wrote it without chapters, just one long story. My only focus was getting the words on paper and seeing if I could do it. Write a book, that is. And I did. Not a good book, but a book nonetheless.
So I tackled a second one. And I tried to make it more bookish. With chapters and everything. I even paid some attention to crazy things like point of view and settings. And then a third.
And somewhere along the way, I decided I was good enough to share a story with the rest of the world. And I really paid attention to all the things that make a book a book and readable by others. What I didn’t know about was things like finding a target audience and genres and readers’ expectations.
But that gave me the freedom to write my stories without worrying about what readers were looking for. I was more worried about my stories being my stories and not a clone of someone else’s. I read a lot and I was rightfully worried about my stories being original and not heavily influenced by books I’ve read.
With time and experience, I’ve come to understand a bit more about things 
like market share and reader experience. I also understand that my stories don’t dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s of what “generic” reader expectations might be. My heroines are strong without needed men to save them. My mysteries don’t require murders. And, heaven forbid, my cozy mysteries have the occasional swear word.
Now, remember that thing I mentioned we’d get back to? It’s sex scenes. If you’ve read my books, you didn’t find any. It’s not that I object to them, it’s that I feel my stories don’t need them. And frankly, I’ve read enough of them that they have started to get boring. Or unrealistic. And this coming from someone old enough to remember when even one sex scene in a romance was breaking new ground. Readers may want them, but they don’t get them from me.
So, if I answer the question honestly, I try to be more original. Or maybe try is the wrong word. I wouldn’t write any other way. I have to be true to my characters and their stories. Because that’s what it comes down to- my books are their stories, not mine. And I hope readers enjoy them.
You can find out more about my books elsewhere on my page. The urban fantasy/paranormal (notice I didn’t say paranormal romance?) books can be found HERE. The female sleuth mysteries are HERE
Now, I’m off to visit the pages of the other authors in this hop. You can come along by following the links below.
October 21, 2019
Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
Yes, we have to write true to ourselves – it’s the only way to be.
I wonder about those folks who write to formula to meet the demands of their publishers. I’d like to know how they feel about this question.
It makes me glad sometimes that I haven’t got a publisher breathing down my neck.
I just write what my characters tell me too, as long as they’re happy (and they would soon tell me if they weren’t), it’s up to the reader to decide on the rest.
I’m avoiding something in my mystery series because I’m worried the readers will hate me if I include it. So far, my characters are letting me get away with it, but I’m afraid its coming.
I’m a character-based writer, so I often don’t have a lot of choice with what my characters tell me, but there are something that are uniquely me —
I am possibly the only evangelical author I know who lets characters say an occasional swear word (including the dreaded “f” word). I reference sex, but I don’t describe it — unless it is absolutely crucial to the story the character is telling me. What happens to Gregyn in The Willow Branch is absolutely necessary and I pared it down the very bare-bones details, so that you have to pause and go “Hey, that’s a male on male rape, isn’t it?”
I do pay attention to my audience, but sometimes the story is more important.
I use impolite words because they are true to my characters’ speech. I wrote a story without them and it seemed artificial.
I found your post most interesting. I am always fascinated by other people’s writing journeys. I had no plan to write three years ago and sort of fell into writing and publishing. I am glad I did because I really love it. I wrote my first sex scene this past weekend. It was needed in my story and my editor and beta reader told me to do it.