Consciously or unconsciously, we write with someone in mind. Writing as a medium is ultimately about communication. Fiction falls under this, too, but with the added pressure of storytelling. Fiction is not about pure information, but about using information to push a story out there using whatever tools the author has at their disposable: prose, plot, character, and all those other wonderful writing mechanics that fills pages and pages of craft books. What we choose to show, the sequence in presenting that information, and so on and so forth all have their place.
What is the ideal audience for a piece? I don’t believe it’s something that can be reduced to the outward appearances of a person. Though arguably demographics is a crude but–until we can find something better–necessary tool for marketing (a cold, calculated business decision that one cannot fully ignore if one wants to make a living out of this), within the confines of the craft, I see it as a matter of how much the writer’s way of seeing the world matches up with the reader. I write books for people who enjoy going on emotionally filled adventures with characters, and who want these emotions to trend towards a hopeful–not nihilistic–worldview, despite all the pain they encounter. I am this sort of reader myself. I care very little about worldbuilding if that worldbuilding doesn’t shape characters in any way, and the mechanics of magic simply bores the heck out of me. I don’t want action without consequences, and I don’t want faux history without context. Instead, I love seeing human nature and emotion in its full display, and any time I encounter a writer like this I immediately take notice so I can inhale their work.
Why is this important? Without audience, you run the risk of creating pieces meant for “everybody”–which is a fallacy, as nothing is for everybody. Many writers simply write what they’ve always enjoyed, and this works great (though I must point out that in this case there is still an assumed default, which not everybody shares, so you have to be very careful in your assumptions). The most powerful stories know what they’re supposed to be about. They know, with swift precision, the themes and messages they intend to deliver and where the journey is supposed to take the reader. As a writer, it’s your job to craft every detail to serve the story. You would know, based on who you are telling the story for, whether you are focusing on the main character’s every breath as they watch the destruction of their hometown (how my stories are written) or zooming out to watch the devastation over the invading army’s shoulder. There are audiences for both kinds of stories, and one is not necessarily better than the other; one is just better for a specific kind of reader.
