Don’t Strictly Write A Book From The Heart, Write For An Audience As Well

Apparently, famous children and teen horror writer, RL Stine, advised that you must write for an audience rather than strictly following your heart when it comes to writing. This advise seems contradictory to the advice given by many writes who says that you should write what your heart dictates.

But there seems to be truth to this advise especially since RL Stine advises and even has courses that teach how to write for a young audience. There are even articles online from other authors that specifically instruct writers on how to write with an audience in mind.

In case you are not familiar with this author, he is best known for his Goosebumps children/teen horror book series. The books are so famous that they have been translated to television and movies. Famous comedian/singer Jack Black even portrayed RL Stine’s character in the movies.

But although RL Stine is a famous children and teen horror book author, you should not take him lightly. Besides being an author of novels and short stories, he is also involved in television and movies as a television producer, screenwriter, and executive editor.

As can be seen, RL Stine is not just an author. He is almost a full-pledged media content producer that produces media entertainment for a lot of mediums. It is fair to say that he has a lot to say about attracting not only readers, but entertainment watchers as well.

And what could be more proof than RL Stine’s financial standing and book count. RL Stine is worth in the vicinity of $200 million as of the end of 2020. He has written over 300 books and has 400 million books in circulation.

Despite this success, he is still a prolific author who can sometimes write 2 books a month. This extraordinary fast writing style has not affected the readability and enjoyment of his books by his readers.

RL Stine has a lot of writing techniques. In fact, he has online courses about writing for a young audience which is clearly his main target and most lucrative audience. Some of his writing techniques are as follows:

Have A Clear Ending In Mind

There are many authors who would vouch for this including me. If you were a cook instead of an author of a book, the main course would be your story ending. The end of your story is ties up all your chapters together and is very instrumental for your readers liking your story.

The ending is where all the loose ends of the story are completed or fixed. There are readers who are so enamored in a story that they can get very angry when the end of the story does not conclude or makes clear a certain part of the story.

RL Stine has a clear formula of how his ending should be. That is, good triumphs over evil. He never deviates from this formula no matter how much the beginning and middle of his story comes up to be.

And this is understandable. Since most of his readers are still between being children or teens, he attempts to ensure that in their minds, the world would always turn out all right no matter what happens.

He considers that since his readers are still under the supervision of their parents, his stories must convey a good message. Imagine what would happen if a child gets frightened or becomes emotionally disturbed to learn that good does not always triumph over evil when they have read one of RL Stine’s book.

This child’s parents would definitely complain not only to RL Stine but to anyone who would listen including the media. This is not good for RL Stine’s writing career although he is just following what he wants to write.

That is why if you are an author, you should consider the ending of your story. Horrific endings might be understood by adult readers, and even though of as realistic. But if you are writing for a more innocent reader, you definitely need to have a more cheerful ending.

Detailed Story Outlining

Another thing RL Stine is famous for is his very detailed story outlines which he always does first before even starting to write his story. He may take from 4 to 5 days outlining in detail his story.

He claims that after he has finished his detailed but hard to do story outline, he then enjoys writing the story which he claims is the best part. He also claims that by doing this technique, he never ever gets Writer’s Block.

But make no mistake. This technique is very hard and could be boring. This is the reason why not all writers do this. As what RL Stine have said, it takes about 4 to 5 days for him to do this. This requires a lot of discipline and practice not to be tempted to just write without a well planned story outline.

As can be seen, if you are an author/writer writing from the heart and not formulaic, you would not like this almost rigid story writing technique. But if you intend to keep your reading audience reading, then your story must be made in such a way that it would keep your readers enthralled with your story.

For example, RL Stine has developed his distinct and almost trademark cliffhanger chapter endings which his readers enjoy and want. If he tries to deviate from this formula, his readership would be affected.

If you are trying to emulate the successful style of RL Stine, then you should consider carefully plotting and structuring the outline of your story to fit the tastes of your intended readers. You might say that this technique is purely intended for commercial gain and not much intended for quality writing.

But hear me out. What is good about a book which has no readers? You might have written a book completely doing the writing style and techniques you enjoy, but the sad part is that it could be only you that enjoys your book.

And here comes the reality of writing books. Just like any product produced by the imagination of humans, it ultimately becomes formulaic. A word that might come to mind would be the word: “Sellout.”

In industries devoted to artistic products like painting, cinema, music, writing books and so on, many people enjoy insulting usually successful artists who they term as sellouts. In the world of cinema for example, cinema critics like to lambast movies that rehash their old themes.

This could be like featuring the same main character and story plots again and again with little changes to each succeeding rehash of the movie. But these critics fail to highlight that the reason these movies keep getting rehashed is that people continue to watch the same rehashed movie over and over again.

In the world of books, it’s the same. Authors most often usually languish for years and even decades in obscurity until they write a book that readers want and becomes bestsellers. What happens is that the author latches on to the success of the book and keeps writing similar books.

Is this bad? This question is for you to answer. But before you consider any artist a sellout, consider that many of them took years and even decades before finally writing a book that their readers would continue to read over and over again. This is just the reality of the world.

James Patterson

Perhaps he is one of the best examples of what critics and even normal people want to call as sellouts. James Patterson is the richest male author in the world. He produces numerous books a year. Many of his critics claim that he produces books like a factory that creates generic products.

And this might be true. James Patterson has used other authors to write for his books. According to James Patterson, other authors might write his novels, but the ideas are still his and he is responsible for the outline of the novels made for him by other authors.

Again, it is up to you to decide if James Patterson has ceased to be an author but is more like a businessman now. It is important to note however that he has found a winning formula that his readers like and he is taking full advantage of it.

The Hardy Boys Series

But if you ever decided that James Patterson is a sellout, consider the Hardy Boys Detective Book Series. It is arguably the most well known detective book series for boys. But contrary to popular belief, there is no single author who can claim to have written the book series.

The truth about the authorship of these books is that the book series was written by many different authors both male and female. In fact the owner of the book series is the publishing company who commissioned the writing of each book to individual authors.

But if you were to read the Hardy Boys books, you would find it hard to guess that each book in the series was written by different authors. This is because the writing formula used for each book in the series was essentially the same.

We can therefore arguably say that maybe during the initial writing of the book series, the writing was more art than formulaic, but after the books became a success the writing formula was repeated over and over again until the book writing became more of a product than art.

So, if you ever write a book that becomes a success, it is a good financial move to write a similar book again, and again, and again, until you your readers don’t want the same book anymore. Once this happens, you will realize that your readers have enough of your stories.

You may be horrified by what I just said, but take a look at the example of RL Stine. He has written so many successful teen horror books yet his readers never tire of his books. That is why it is a good idea to read some of RL Stine’s book to see what makes him successful over and over again.

It is clear that RL Stine has been successful with children/teen light horror books. He knows the story formula for this market. If he had written books that is not the right formula for his market he would have failed. So know the story formula for your audience before even deciding to write if your intention is to sell a lot of books.

Writing with an audience in mind is especially helpful if you want your books to be turned to other media like films. If your intention is this, please take note that the world of books is very different from films.

Printed Books Publishers

If you are writing stories for ebooks for example, your story word count may be insignificant. But if intended to have your book printed then you would have to abide by the word count convention of major printed book publishers.

In this case, your first audience or readers would be the printed book publishers who have their own requirements on how stories should be written like for example the word count of the story.

There have been many authors who have had their books rejected from printed publication because they don’t follow the writing convention of their audiences who may be the actual book reader themselves or the book publishers.

Film Producers

If you are writing with the intent that your books might be turned to films, then you would have to make your story ideal to be made into a film. If you think that just because your book is a bestseller it is a good candidate to be made into a film, think again.

One of the reasons why even bestselling books have been rejected from being made into films is because of budgetary constraints. A film producer has to decide if the story can be made according to their budget.

If your story for example needs a cast of thousands and the movie studio’s budget can only afford a cast of a hundred, then your book won’t be made. So even before you write your books, think first if your story can be made into a film especially from the point of filming costs.

Another important reason why books get rejected from being made into films is because of visual impossibility. The art of cinema has advanced considerably that there is almost no story that cannot be made into film, but there are still stories that are difficult to be made into films.

Stories that have strong sex, religious, social or political themes can become impossible to be turned into films because of censorship and social backlash concerns. That is why before writing your story, consider the social backlash you may face by writing your story.

Authors may just be foolishly following their hearts when they write a book, only to discover that although they are in the right, there would be people who are willing to make life miserable for the authors just because they don’t like what the author has written.

Writing books based on what your heart desires can be very fulfilling for authors, but may not be fulfilling for their readers who want a very specific story from their authors. And if no one buys an author’s book, would the author really feel fulfilled?

Writing for an audience also becomes more important when you are writing from not purely readers, but those who may have creative control over your stories such as printed book publishers and film producers because they have strict requirements on how stories should be made.

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