Who? What? And Especially Why? All About That Thing You’re Doing When People Constantly Interrupt You

“Hey! I’m working here!”

How many times have you yelled that at someone, or wanted to, when they were making noise or had the gall to talk to you while you were writing?

But to be fair, how were they supposed to know you were deep in a complex passage of the next great American novel and not browsing social media? (Or were you? Never mind.)

The more important questions are: What are you writing? Who are you writing it for? And why?

Or, as Socrates said, “Know thyself and thy genre and thy audience.” (Or something like that.)

Writers: I don’t want to be pigeonholed.

Publishing: What’s your pigeonhole?

Some writers are reluctant to categorize their writing. They think they can achieve a level of uniqueness by defying the norms. But they’re just making their lives more difficult.

Before agents, publishers and booksellers learn the title, plot, characters or anything else about your book, they want to know what genre it is. This tells them how to publish and promote it, what shelves to put it on, and what sort of audience it might appeal to. They’ll know immediately whether it’s the kind of thing they publish, or need right now, or is selling, etc.

Yes, it might cause some people to dismiss your project out of hand. But if you’ve done a good job of describing the book, that will save everyone time and aggravation, including you. Knowing your genre also helps in your research about who to approach in the first place.

It’s Where You Start and  Where You Finish

You need to know what you’re writing, probably before you start but definitely before you finish, and if you go the latter route, be prepared to make extensive revisions.

So, what are your choices?

Fiction vs nonfiction is the most basic dividing line, and within each there are many genres and subgenres. Major categories of fiction include Literary and Commercial, with terms like thriller, mystery, science fiction, historical, young adult and many others underneath. In nonfiction, there are narrative, academic, memoir, autobiography and many more. Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive genre list. And there are many others online.

Certainly, books can blend genres—thriller with elements of fantasy, mystery with elements of science fiction, and on and on endlessly. But you need to be able to articulate that, so people in the industry know what you’re talking about. And it’s probably best not to claim your book blends more than three genres at most because then you’re not defining it, you’re just confusing people. A thriller with elements of sci fi and fantasy might be okay, but add romance and family drama to your genre claim and it’s too much (even though your story might have some romance and family drama in it).

Everyone Will Love My Book

I hope so. But there’s likely a main audience for your book, what the industry calls your ‘‘target audience.” It might be young people, older people, men, women, thriller-lovers, people who don’t want gore in their reading, people who do want gore in their reading, etc.

Figure out what your target audience is and write for it, and also promote your book that way to the industry.

Of course, you hope that your book will appeal to readers outside the target audience, and it’s fine to say that, too. For example, my books are military spy thrillers, a genre that primarily appeals to men, middle aged and older. But I always mention that one of my main characters is a strong, smart, powerful woman and that many women who have read the books love them.

On the nonfiction side, if you’re writing a memoir, the most important decision is whether you’re writing only for your family and friends, or whether you’re trying to appeal to a broader audience of nonfiction readers. This will help you determine how to tell the story, how much detail to include and whether and how you will present it to agents and publishers.

Similarly, an academic book or a special interest book like business advice or art or home maintenance should be written either to a broad audience or a narrow one, depending on the specific content and the author’s goals.

Why Am I Doing This to Myself?

Why are you spending untold hours writing and more hours agonizing over the writing? Why are you spending money on editors, classes, conferences, etc? Why are you subjecting yourself to the soul-crushing query process?

Bad news: If it’s to become rich and famous, you’ve gone terribly wrong somewhere along the line.

Good news: Other than that, there are no wrong answers.

You may have a story you’re dying to tell. You may have always wanted to be an author. You may want to see whether you can actually write a book. You may have some completely different answer.

All are fine, as long as you know your reason(s) and feel strongly enough about the project to get through the long, sometimes difficult writing and publishing process.

Knowing the “why” will also set your expectations and help determine how you go about your writing and publishing journey.

More Philosophy

It wasn’t Socrates (or Lewis Carroll or Yogi Berra) who wrote, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”

Let’s adapt that for writing:

If you don’t know what you’re writing, any sequence of words will get you there.

If you don’t know who you’re writing for, there may not be anyone there.

And, if you don’t know why you’re writing, you may not get there at all.

I’m clearly not much of a philosopher. But if you’re setting out on a writing journey, Mr. Socrates, the first step is to know what thou art writing and wherefore and for whom.

If not, you’ll just come to a fork in the road, and take it.