IMPROVING YOUR WRITING SERIES
Discover Your Genre
The goal of becoming a more effective writer and expanding your audience in the process pt 4
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I’ve been excited and am getting more and more excited as we progress through this series reading through the book, “How to Write an Essay Like a Mathematical Equation”.
Discipline and Structure
As we make our way through this series, I’m excited for the transformation I hope my own writing will undergo. I need all the transformation I can get.
Being aware of the audience and figuring out what the audience wants by reading what they already read was eye opening.
I confess, I haven’t always had these principles in the foremost thought of my mind. Sometimes I’ll pick random topics that happen to jump out at me in the moment to write about and hope that my audience will be as interested as I am. Most of the time, it works out.
Sporadic and spontaneous has been my usual go to. A little discipline and structure wouldn’t hurt that is for sure.
That’s what this entire series is all about: improving my writing.
Genre
Finding your purpose for writing will also guide you to what genre you will write. Readers start to develop certain expectations within a certain genre. They want to see certain characteristics that mesh with previous article they have read before within certain genres.
Readers that pick up a thriller expect to see characters in high stakes edge of your seat situations. Readers who pick up a self-improvement article will have totally different expectations.
Genre Formation
When a large group of people have the same needs and goals and writers strive to meet those goals, a new genre is formed around the characteristics of their needs and goals.
When your writing does not contain the expected characteristics of a particular genre you’re writing in, it creates confusion and frustration within your audience.
Imagine if this article was posted in a movie review publication😐.
The reader does not want to read a piece of writing not even remotely related to the genre they’ve selected.
Diversifying
There’s nothing wrong with writing for multiple genres. If I’m lucky, I might be proficient in two. One of them probably hasn’t been invented yet.
Still waiting for that audience to realize that’s the genre they want😂.
Learning the Genre
Learning new genres usually requires that you read them first and become familiar with them.
With effective reading, you won’t need formal training. Focus on how the content is presented, and how it’s organized. Look for these examples and read them like a writer.
There isn’t a single book in the world that could possibly contain the necessary information to teach you about all the existing genres. That should give you an idea of the total genres that exist today. It seems like a new genre is invented every year.
What interests me
I find myself drawn to narratives. Narratives are basically just stories. A story depends on details that allow the reader to experience the events, emotions or places being described. The reader has to be able to connect with the characters; to feel what they feel.
When a character is excited or in a dangerous predicament, you feel your pulse quicken. When the hero is wronged, we are enraged.
A good storyteller brings about a visceral reaction in the reader. The writer will send the reader in a rollercoaster of emotions.
Seasoned Authors
Ken Follett and George RR Martin are some of the more recent authors that sent me through the entire gamut of emotions. The stories they told tore me up and blew me away. Movies are the same way for me. When the writers, actors, and directors can convince me of the story they are portraying and the probability of what is happening to the characters, or the scenario they happen to be in, they will keep my attention to the very end so long as they don’t stuff it up with bad or unconvincing dialogue. That infuriates me to no end.
You’ve got to have top notch believable, and contextual dialogue or you might as well scrap the entire project in my not so humble opinion.
Many a good story has been ranked and wasted by bad dialogue.
What are your favorite types of articles?
What makes them stand out from others?
What are the genres of your favorite articles, and could you describe them to someone who was unfamiliar?
As we ponder these questions, the equation starts to build and take shape.
Audience awareness + Purpose/Genre + ….
Thank you for reading🌺
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