You want fans to connect to the book, even movie fans. But if your sole purpose is to write towards a certain kind of fan, that way leads madness.
When I'm writing for Esquire, my conscious thought is, I'm not writing for American Scholar.
I've never written specifically for children as such. I write to please myself, and if it is suitable, it gets printed as a children's book.
When aspiring writers ask me about how they should target their writing, I tell them to pay no attention to that kind of thing. It will restrict you. You will end up falling into stereotypes in an effort to tailor your work toward a perceived genre category.
I write to be read. I'm quite direct about that. I'm not writing to thrill colleagues or to impress the professors at the University of Iowa; that's not my goal.
I mean, I don't write for kids.
There's this common sense idea that in order to appeal to the biggest number of people, you have to write something very general, but my experience is the more specific you make something, the more people respond to it, in a very odd way.
If I don't know who I'm writing for, I make it up and pick somebody I'm writing for. That's really the only way to do it.
Too many writers get stuck in the trap of writing what they think is funny and not considering who they are writing it for.
If you write for somebody that you know, then your job is so much easier.
It sometimes is better to write in a more directed, focused way when the pages are aimed at something already, a mission statement or a basic spine that represents the theme or the concept that you've agreed on, and writing partners are great for that because you can sit there until you get it.
A man really writes for an audience of about ten persons. Of course if others like it, that is clear gain. But if those ten are satisfied, he is content.
You have to keep your audience in your mind; if you're writing stuff that you know nobody's going to care about then you should rethink what you're doing!
Whenever I write a part, I think there's this person somewhere in the world that this part is specifically for, and all I have to do is go searching to find that particular individual.
You've got to write for your audience.
I simply write with an intelligent reader in mind. I don't think about how old they are.
I'm comfortable having a specific audience to write to. I like the idea that my audience doesn't see what I do as controversial.
I find you write with one person in mind. Usually for me that one person is my wife, because she's my most severe critic and understands best what I'm trying to do.
I do not write for the public. You are my public and I hope to convert you.
