Well, I thought that I’d talk briefly about those times when something is fun to create but probably isn’t enjoyable for the audience. This was something I ended up thinking about in late March when I was trying to work out what to do for my sixth writing project this year. For context, the first three were unpublished sci-fi horror novellas, the fourth was an unpublished horror novella, the fifth was a dark fantasy novelette (I couldn’t get it to novella-length...) and I wasn’t sure what to do for the sixth.
I suddenly had an idea for a first-person perspective stream-of-consciousness novella, with magical realism elements and prominent LGBT+ themes. And, to test out the idea, I wrote about 2100 words of it in Microsoft Notepad (a “basic” low-pressure way of writing) in about the same amount of time it would take me to write just 1000-1500 of a well-structured third-person perspective horror or thriller story. This thing was practically writing itself!
I also realised that this story idea was like a modern version of one of those crumbling old 1960s-70s paperbacks, with modern art on the cover, you’d find in second-hand shops twenty years ago. The sort of story that old literary critics would pompously describe as being “typewritten”. One from the days when the publishing industry was a bit more adventurous, a bit more edgy and a bit more experimental. From the days when “literary fiction” wasn’t just synonymous with “boring”, “pretentious” and/or “posh”.
But, as someone who mostly reads genre fiction, I realised that – if someone else wrote this story – I probably wouldn’t be interested in reading it. It would be one of those weird projects that would be fun to write but which probably wouldn’t be as interesting to the audience. And, yes, these sorts of projects are worth making in some ways – either for the enjoyment of making them, or in case you misjudged your audience or even as a way to remind yourself why you create things.
Personal creativity – for yourself – is important if you’re also creating things for an audience (although I’ll probably use the time I have for this on my art journal, rather than this story idea…) but also being in the audience for other creative works, especially ones in the medium you’re making stuff in, is important because it allows you to at least vaguely second-guess what your audience will or won’t like.
Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t perfect – I’ve had more experiences than I can remember of posting rushed or uninspired art on DeviantART, only for it to get more views and/or favourites than the – better – art I thought that the audience would like more. But, whilst it’s impossible to perfectly guess how your audience will react to anything you create, actually being part of the audience for other stuff at least lets you avoid some more glaring mistakes.
And, yes, making stuff that isn’t for an audience can often be the very best type of creativity because you just focus on whatever is personally meaningful to you, so you have more motivation and – without the whole “What will the audience think?” thing – you have ton of extra freedom to experiment and to express yourself. And it’s also a more satisfying type of creativity because, unlike stuff made for a wider audience, you perfectly know the one audience member – yourself – for these things, so you can make something that you really like.
And, just like those moments when you suddenly realise that everything and everyone in a daydream is technically part of your imagination (and therefore, you), there’s definitely an interesting pantheism/solipsism (both lead to the same conclusions eventually) element to creating things for yourself.
Still, if you are making stuff that you’re even vaguely planning to show to a wider audience at some point, then make sure that you aren’t disconnected from the audience. Actually being in the audience for other stuff will often let you avoid glaring mistakes or errors, if you actually remember to think about your audience.
———–
Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂
