Each fan fiction writer, I assume, writes first and foremost for her/himself, and writes what they would enjoy reading, and/or what turns them on. But the moment they get their story out of the drawer/ hard drive/ tablet, and post it on fanfiction.net or AO3 or whatever, implied readers come into play. To what extent are writers who post their stories influenced by the potential responses of their (as yet unknown, or possibly already-known) implied readers? Do the writers who cheerfully say “I write what I want to write, and if people don’t enjoy it, too bad” deceive themselves to a greater or lesser extent?
This is an interesting question.
I myself have had a peculiar relationship with readership since I used to write for the main ship in the small-ish fandom that is Death Note (I say smallish because it’s more on the scale of 50-100 people rather than the ~5-10 active blogs in the pasta fandom). Going from writing for a main ship to writing for a rarepair taught me a lot about my relationship to readers and what I should value in readers. I learned you only need a few dedicated and passionate readers to feel properly appreciated– quality over quantity. And the best are other writers/artists so that you can feel like your creativity sustains and inspires each other.
I think my answer to this question would be that I almost never write for implied readers. Writing for the main ship taught me that, because when I looked at the mainstream content that had the most ‘kudos’ or the like, it was for the most part content I couldn’t even imagine myself reading, much less writing. There’s always going to be people with vastly different tastes than I, and I have no interest in writing things that I don’t believe are interesting and worth writing simply for the responses of readers (after all, I’m the one slaving behind the computer, I better damn well like it!).
But I do, often even, write for known readers. It’s an influence on whether I decide to write some of my shorter stories especially– that is, if I think someone I know well and who likes my work would enjoy reading a particular story that I also would enjoy writing, I’m a lot more inclined to write it. A box of wine and better off not talking is a good example of this. Readership occasionally influences decisions in the multichap I cowrite with @tartpants (although it might be more accurate to say it inspires us sometimes 🙂 ).
There are, though, stories I write simply on the momentum of wanting them to exist, and they do have a special place of fondness for me. One of my best works, flowers grown in forgotten lungs, is more in this category than it is not. The recent Blondeyes fic I wrote, Devil’s eyes gonna teach you to sight, also falls in this category (I honestly was positively gleeful writing that…it was an evil urge)– but I certainly barely expected those who knew my writing to like it, much less discover a new fandom.
I guess the takeaway I get from all of this is that writing among friends is the best thing, and that following what fic you want to see written is almost always the best thing to do 🙂 write it, and hopefully they will come!
I sent off my question hoping for lots of answers and opinions, and received only @sybilius’ detailed and insightful answer. So, following the old Italian saying “if you want to be obeyed, give the order and then carry it out yourself”, I am going to try finding my own answer.
I agree with @sybilius: writing with a few trusted readers in mind is the best option. I have written a little in some tiny fandoms and a little in a couple of medium-sized fandoms. All of them were action fandoms: Westerns, cop shows, and Rome. I have always written what I would have liked to read: action stories where the OTP fight enemies as well as interacting with each other emotionally and sexually. This (like, ahem, being bisexual??) can be a recipe for joy and, as often happened to me, a recipe for disaster: “gen” fans of “my” shows enjoyed the action plots and asked me why I felt the need to include the slashy scenes, and slash fans said that they would have liked longer sex scenes of emotional and sexual communication. So I write, hope for comments, read them, am delighted if I have pleased some readers, suffer some pangs of self-deprecation for having failed other readers, try to follow intelligent suggestions (smiles at a recent intelligent critic, whose latest comment I will answer soon) and keep muddling on as best I can.
P.S. It would still be great to hear other people’s experiences.
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