Targets
In publishing, we as authors are told quite vehemently to KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE. What this means is we can't just claim our books are suitable for all ages and all people. There's a reason for the Young Adult and New Adult genres, too. We do not want our children picking up 50 Shades just as adults don't normally pick up See Spot Run to read on a lengthy commute. (Please note, that just because RMOS is fantasy, does not mean it's for children! It's not!)
RMOS is very woman oriented. I also intended it to be highly emotive and introspective in Lira's point of view, and to display the things that affect us as women the most: absolute love, loss of that love and of a child and of sense of self, misogny, sexual threat, and the paths we do and don't take toward re-learning to live after these events. It's a pet peeve of mine to pick a book that sounds wonderfully gritty, only for the author to gloss over those events they're writing about, and the book becomes a flat 'this, then' narrative. Make me cry, make me angry, make me explode in love and happiness for the characters, make me rethink my processes, make me second-guess something. I'm a reader, too. Make me a target.
My target audience is women. However, about half of my purchasers have been men. And this makes me nervous! I can't say, Um, I didn't target you! I'm guessing that topics such as what appears in RMOS might make men uncomfortable. Maybe? I was told by a male friend-fellow writer that the story is depressing and the difference between how women and men write is becoming apparent. I'm not sure how to respond to that, except to think maybe my non-targets should read my stories: to gain compassion and understanding. I trully hope I make you cry, that I make you so mad about things you won't experience or maybe do have a fear of experiencing (kidnapping of a child, sexual attack of a female Other), that your rage brings about something positive and real. Women are targets way too often- even in publishing- and that's not an easy concept to grasp. I'm not graphic in my writing, but stuff is there. And these 'stuffs' are not something men have in their mental makeup. How envious I am of that.
Good men know these 'stuffs', they worry over the mothers, sisters, women, and daughters in their lives, they protect and serve and prosecute and treat, but maybe they don't understand the psyche of it all. That men just like them- with mothers and sisters and women and daughters- can just as easily turn against us. Can start a gender civil war. How did this war happen?, my fellow male-writer friend asked me. Very easily, is the answer.
Most men don't feel it, how could you? Bringing these topics up is never meant to paint all men wrong, just detail those men who make life worse for all of us, and to show exactly how it affects the women who were turned into targets. The world needs good men (and women) to be louder.
Maybe male readers should be included in my target audience. Maybe I did write this for you.
RMOS is very woman oriented. I also intended it to be highly emotive and introspective in Lira's point of view, and to display the things that affect us as women the most: absolute love, loss of that love and of a child and of sense of self, misogny, sexual threat, and the paths we do and don't take toward re-learning to live after these events. It's a pet peeve of mine to pick a book that sounds wonderfully gritty, only for the author to gloss over those events they're writing about, and the book becomes a flat 'this, then' narrative. Make me cry, make me angry, make me explode in love and happiness for the characters, make me rethink my processes, make me second-guess something. I'm a reader, too. Make me a target.
My target audience is women. However, about half of my purchasers have been men. And this makes me nervous! I can't say, Um, I didn't target you! I'm guessing that topics such as what appears in RMOS might make men uncomfortable. Maybe? I was told by a male friend-fellow writer that the story is depressing and the difference between how women and men write is becoming apparent. I'm not sure how to respond to that, except to think maybe my non-targets should read my stories: to gain compassion and understanding. I trully hope I make you cry, that I make you so mad about things you won't experience or maybe do have a fear of experiencing (kidnapping of a child, sexual attack of a female Other), that your rage brings about something positive and real. Women are targets way too often- even in publishing- and that's not an easy concept to grasp. I'm not graphic in my writing, but stuff is there. And these 'stuffs' are not something men have in their mental makeup. How envious I am of that.
Good men know these 'stuffs', they worry over the mothers, sisters, women, and daughters in their lives, they protect and serve and prosecute and treat, but maybe they don't understand the psyche of it all. That men just like them- with mothers and sisters and women and daughters- can just as easily turn against us. Can start a gender civil war. How did this war happen?, my fellow male-writer friend asked me. Very easily, is the answer.
Most men don't feel it, how could you? Bringing these topics up is never meant to paint all men wrong, just detail those men who make life worse for all of us, and to show exactly how it affects the women who were turned into targets. The world needs good men (and women) to be louder.
Maybe male readers should be included in my target audience. Maybe I did write this for you.
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