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Writer Mama
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Reaching Your Audience
Posted by maria
Hi Writers,
A lot of writing books come across my desk and I try to give most of them at least a quick read before stacking them on my bookshelves.
So I thought, instead of just hoarding these books, I'd share a tiny bit here. I'm not going to be doing book reviews, just pulling out some interesting excerpts that I think hold some writerly wisdom.
Here's an excerpt from
Standing at Water's Edge: Moving Past Fear, Blocks and Pitfalls to Discover the Power of Creative Immersion
by Anne Paris, PhD, on finding a rapport with your audience.
How do you fantasize about your audience? Are they hostile and critical? Appreciative and giving? Are they willing to follow you in your expression?
Make a reality check about the nature of your assumptions. Are these assumptions based on your past experience with an audience? Or are they based on your previous experience in personal relationships?
For effective communication of your artistic message, your audience must be considered. View the audience as a potential new relationship. Your goal is to engage the audience in a two-way experience. Listen to them and reach out to them to invite them into your artistic space. Attempt to share your immersive experience with them rather than presenting it to them. This may involve considerable feelings of vulnerability, especially if you have negative assumptions about the audience’s willingness to engage with you. Finding trust with an audience and becoming skillful at eliciting a relationship with them is perhaps one of your biggest challenges.
Keep Writing,
Maria
p.s. I'm considering a font change. What do you think about this one? Verdana: Ya! or No way!
the writing life
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writing books
4/23/2008 2:24:55 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Comments [7]
4/24/2008 7:40:28 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Love the Verdana. Much cleaner!
Lori
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lwbeanAT NOSPAMgmail dot com
4/24/2008 10:41:57 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
I love Verdana too!
Lisa Bakewell
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lbakewell01AT NOSPAMsbcglobal dot net
4/24/2008 5:27:26 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Thanks for giving us something important to think about...reaching our audience and the importance of learning how to create a relationship with our readers.
It is difficult to get feedback from readers. I believe many readers don't know or understand how important it is for us to hear from them. Many are just not into communicating with authors. They will tell their family and friends if they really like something, or hate it, but don't give the feedback to the author.
As for your change of font, Verdana is easy to read. Of course, my favorite font is Comic Sans :-)
Ann
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annmarquetteAT NOSPAMmindspring dot com
4/24/2008 10:33:36 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
How cool to read a blurb about audience when I am right in the middle of editing a section on considering your audience in my forthcoming book, Get Known Before the Book Deal.
Now to just figure out how to get it on Maria's desk...
Thanks for talking about audience! It's everything for writers.
The Writer Mama
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writermamaAT NOSPAMearthlink dot net
4/27/2008 7:19:53 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
I'm not too crazy about Verdana. A nice one, I think, is Sylfaen.
Ruth Campbell
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calmag200323AT NOSPAMyahoo dot com
5/6/2008 4:06:40 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
I vote for Verdana!
Brenda Wilson Wooley
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brenda40AT NOSPAMbellsouth dot net
5/11/2008 3:21:18 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
When I decided to try my hand at writing it seems my Wife and huge assortment of others went thats nice now go play. Which made not sad more like ok these are the skeptics. So i picked the ten that didnt read at all. So far I have kept them rivetted to my story. I was challenge to make a superhero and i started out with a most unlikely way of doing it.
brad morrow
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darkarrow1000AT NOSPAMyahoo dot com
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