: Re: Writing for a broad spectrum of readers. How do you engage the elite whilst appealing to the base? I've always struggled with this. I like to write at the top of my knowledge without leaving

@Barnes643

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My advice would be to forget about "engaging" people, not because you don't need to, exactly, but because trying to often gets in the way of successfully doing so (people end up writing stuff that doesn't even engage them, because they think it's what their readers want).

I think it's better to think about communicating. You have a story in your head, and a set of characters, and a world (which might, of course, resemble the real world very closely, but is nonetheless a product of your imagination). Your goal is show this to the reader, and show them why they should care about it.

So, how do you communicate? Do you assume the reader thinks like you, and shares the same interests as you?

If you do, you may be able to rely on shared assumptions and communicate very deeply with people who are like you in these respects, but you may fail to communicate with people who don't think like you or share your interests.

If, however, you assume the reader has nothing in common with you, and try to bridge the gap between you by expressing more universal ideas through more widely understood devices, you may not communicate so deeply, but you will probably communicate further, and with more people.

So, I think there is always a certain trade off between these two, but there's also a continuum between them. Great works, the ones that we remember, that are popular and acclaimed, generally don't fall quite at either end of this continuum (since those that do will tend to end up forgotten or unread) but they usually encompass a large portion of it. Because of the writer's brilliance, they are able to bridge the gap more completely than other works, and connect things that are personal to the writer with things that are personal to the reader.

The trick, then, I think, is to occupy as large a space on this continuum as possible. Whether you choose a portion nearer to yourself ("experimental fiction"), somewhere in the middle ("literary fiction") or nearer to your reader ("popular fiction") is obviously up to you.

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