: Re: A question on determining audience I'm taking a writing course and the biggest challenge I'm facing is figuring out my audience — particularly for something I have written where I didn't have

@Connie138

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Determining your audience is radically different depending on whether or not your work is fiction or nonfiction.

In fiction, the first division of audience is by age. Is your work for children, teens, or adults? After that, you can go for genre, which is not the same as audience but may be more of what you're thinking. With genre, you don't determine it based on passages from your writing; you choose what to put into passages of writing based on the genre.

Some genres do overlap with audience. For example, if you have a literary book, that won't appeal to all adult readers. Something like sci-fi or mystery will have fans and non-fans, but it isn't so much about audience because it's more about setting and type of story.

In nonfiction, your audience is more like you describe, though it can be narrow or broad. People with an interest in antiques. Or in memoir. If you're writing for a magazine, then audience will be narrow, because most magazines have niche markets. Here, it might be an article for collectors of 19th century household goods. Yet the same article published in a newspaper would have to have broader appeal, beyond those who already know something about the subject.

If your work is fiction then you are way overthinking this. If you are aiming to sell an article to a specialty magazine, then you are on the right track.

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