My Genre and Target Audience-Hopping Journey
When I first started writing at around five or six years old, my stories mostly consisted of three or four-page "mysteries" (that weren't necessarily all that mysterious) and Harry Potter fan fiction in which I was a character. As I grew older, I also grew more ambitious and would embark excitedly on various ideas for novels, most of which were in the fantasy genre, filling up about five pages at best in a fresh new writing journal before abandoning the story and, strangely, also allowing the journal to fall into disuse. This continued on a fairly regular basis until, at around ten years old, I decided that I wanted to write a book about superheroes. This evolved quickly from a fleeting thought into four characters, each with their own detailed personal conflicts and, of course, superpowers. With this focus on character over plot, my writing was revolutionized, and this particular story stuck around in a way others hadn't. I kept returning to it over the next few years and finally hammered it out, "finishing" it (i.e. scribbling THE END on the roughest of rough drafts) not long after I turned 12. My agonizing revision journey continues to this day, but now new trends have developed in my writing.
I've grown up, and as I've grown I've grown towards sci-fi (specifically dystopian), suspense, and realistic genres. My target audience has even changed: my writing, while not all that racy or violent, has matured to the point that some of it would be better directed to a young adult audience. At this point, I've even now found myself writing what is quite possibly my first story ever in which all the characters are adults. I look at the madcap adventure stories I've begun writing in past years, each one a labor of love, with a certain degree of nostalgia. Maybe it's just all that's happening in the world, maybe it's all that's happening within me, but I fear that in future years I might lose touch with the inner child I consult for each children's story. Still, though, I cringe at the thought of writing for adults.
I don't know where my writing journey will take me next. Maybe I'll venture further into new genres. Maybe I'll manage to maintain the connection with my inner child. Maybe I'll find my niche in some vaguely defined region between middle grade and young adult literature. It seems that the process of creation, not only the story that comes out through the pen (or keyboard), can be likened to life in general, joyous and painful and so unpredictable.
Whew, that was a lot. Until next time!
I've grown up, and as I've grown I've grown towards sci-fi (specifically dystopian), suspense, and realistic genres. My target audience has even changed: my writing, while not all that racy or violent, has matured to the point that some of it would be better directed to a young adult audience. At this point, I've even now found myself writing what is quite possibly my first story ever in which all the characters are adults. I look at the madcap adventure stories I've begun writing in past years, each one a labor of love, with a certain degree of nostalgia. Maybe it's just all that's happening in the world, maybe it's all that's happening within me, but I fear that in future years I might lose touch with the inner child I consult for each children's story. Still, though, I cringe at the thought of writing for adults.
I don't know where my writing journey will take me next. Maybe I'll venture further into new genres. Maybe I'll manage to maintain the connection with my inner child. Maybe I'll find my niche in some vaguely defined region between middle grade and young adult literature. It seems that the process of creation, not only the story that comes out through the pen (or keyboard), can be likened to life in general, joyous and painful and so unpredictable.
Whew, that was a lot. Until next time!
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