Should I be a Dickens or a Dr. Seuss? My name is Ken Mears. And I'm Melissa Fales. And welcome to Writer's World. The question of this episode is, should I be a Dickens or a Dr. Seuss? This was a way of asking, how much description should I put in my story? Ken, what are your thoughts? How much description should someone put in their story? In my personal opinion, people should put a lot of description in their story, but avoid overdescribing.
For example, I don't want just, the mountains were tall. I want the mountains jutted into the sky like the teeth of some long dead creature. The tops of the mountains glistened with caps of snow. However, there is such a thing as overdescribing. An author my grandfather really enjoys, Tom Clancy, has this tendency. He will describe everything in such detail that by the end of the book, you would know how to build the submarine that the story takes place on. That is a bit too far.
The conclusion that I came to was how much description you put in depends on who your audience is and what your style is. For good old Tom, his style was lots and lots and lots of detail. According to wellstory.com, quote, working to write a story that appeals to as many readers as possible is a common mistake. Readers are diverse and thus no story will apply to every reader, end quote.
So I thought this was a good point in saying that you should probably think a little bit about who your audience is. Knowing who your audience is can help you. Typical toddler tendencies, we are talking about maybe a hundred words, probably less, where most of the description is done through pictures. Typical young adult tendencies are usually 175 to 200 pages with 55,000 to 80,000 words.
And typical adult books tendencies are around 80,000 words, according to writersdigest.com or 100,000 words according to writersandartists.com. Of course, there is a lot of wiggle room in how much description you should put in, but I think something that can be very helpful if you're asking this question is to identify what your age bracket is. And also how much description you put in does depend on your style. Before we continue on to the next question, we're going to have a quick break.
The next question we will be addressing is, should I write with a targeted audience in mind? In public speaking and marketing, there is a saying to quote, know your audience and quote. This can best be described by a personal story. There's this game which I play with my neighbors where a judge picks a picture and everyone else has to pick a saying they think goes best with the picture. The judge then decides which word card they like best.
The only way you can win at this game is by knowing your audience and tailoring to them. And yes, I think you should always consider your audience. Stephen King said, quote, all novels are letters aimed at one person, quote, aka your ideal audience. Here are three reasons to define your target audience according to coschedule.com. Quote, one, ensure you're creating the right content for the right people. Two, better understand how to create content that connects benefits to reader needs.
Three, increases conversation. And quote, it also is the best way to win apples to apples. Let's hear Ken's thoughts. Should authors write with an audience in mind? For sure. Every audience is different. Some people love the over description where you could paint a perfect painting just from the words. Others will not want nearly as much description, especially if they are much younger. And of course, there is the middle ground where they want the perfect balance of description.
Of course, you have to find your audience first. Then you can tell your description to your audience. This leads to the next question perfectly, which is how do I find my audience? And I think you will find your audience pretty quickly. It's the one you enjoy the writing, writing the most and the one you find yourself writing to. I would focus on having a unique writing voice and style and you will find your audience of people you enjoy writing to.
And those people will love you and then some people won't love you. Ken you're experienced, you're well, I'm older, but how does someone find their audience? Often an audience kind of finds you. However, that doesn't mean you don't go in without an audience in mind. In fact, you should probably know what audience you want to be writing for because this is very important because it affects what you write.
Clearly there will be a big difference between writing for five year olds and for people in their 80s. And sometimes you need someone's opinion to tell you what your audience is for a specific book. For example, with my own book, The Castaway Hero, my publisher told me that my particular book seemed like it would work best if it was targeted toward middle school grades. So I wrote towards that. We'll finish up talking about writing for a reader right after a short break.
This is a very long winded question. So prepare yourself. Should I start my story writing for my ideal readers or write my story and see what age bracket it ends up taking me? I think that here Ken and I will have very different approaches and I fully accept that my current way could change. Again the question is, should I start my story writing for my ideal reader or write my story and see what age bracket it ends up taking me?
I believe that this depends a lot on if you are a planster or a plotter. You will get a lot of opinions on this, of what you should do, what has been done, what is best. But I think whatever works for you in answering this question and trial and error would be the best way I think you could personally figure this out. Ken, should someone start their story writing for their ideal readers or write their story and see what age bracket it ends up taking them?
I would say write your story as you like to write. As I mentioned, when it came to my story I had it all written first and then my publisher came to me and told me that I would likely have a best fit there for a middle grade market. But really it would be a good idea to have some idea of what age range you would like to be writing for. I knew that I wanted to write for kids, I just wasn't specific to elementary, middle, or high schoolers.
And my writing style for the Stones of the Middle Land series just so happens to fill into one of those specific age ranges. And that's how Ken found his. And maybe you'll find yours in a different way and maybe we'll end up interviewing you later about how you found it. And we hope today's episode was helpful. If you like our podcast, please share it with your friends and family. For sources and the transcript, visit writersworldpodcast.weebly.com.
And our Instagram is writersworldpodcastofficial. Our Patreon is patreon.com slash writersworldpodcast. Until next time, I've been Ken Mears. And I've been Melissa Fales with Writers World. Thank you for watching and keep on writing.