How much did you pander to the audience?

[Deleted member 57675]

Perhaps am wary of certain subjects may touch on, so need more research cause don't want come off rudely projecting hurtful tropes on certain groups. If reader(s) point it out, and theres valid crticism and feedback from quite a few, may see what can be changed to make writing better.

But if reader(s) are extremely pick about certain things like telling what to do to the point it's forcing the writer's hand very toxically, then forget it. Or if its too much that it'll deviate the story in an unsatisfactory way to the writer, then forget it.

A reader can tell a writer not to kill off a character or to write some smut; a writer can also flip them off, laugh ominously and do a 360° turn. Stories exists because of writers, stories will also continue if the writer continues.

 

[DoubleBlind]

These are the sorts of issues I try to avoid when possible. I can't speak for every author obviously, but pandering is like dancing on a knife's edge. The readers don't know how it ends. They don't know what your outline looks like. They don't know your plans. Sometimes, events in the story are going to play integral parts in how it all coalesces.

I feel that minor things, like "this character got more time in the spotlight" or "what is x character up to since they left y's group?" are okay once in a while, but even that can be a bit rickety.

 

[Shaizic]

How much do I pander to my audience

I have censored myself a lot because I don't want to share everything that goes on, but other than that I'm not going to change my story just to get people to like my book

 

[doravg]

Original Vampire (CN) just ended yesterday and the ending is expectedly disappointing. The thing had been a gentle lowering into the grave since a month ago with Colin too OP even until the last fight against the supposed "big bad".

Then the afterwords of the author made me want to post this thread. Tldr, author pandered to the readers by killing off some important antagonists along the way and somehow screwed up his plot so badly that the work is rushed to its finale.

Onr example being a mercenary's son who killed off his father, in the first ten chapters he was foreshadowed to have a major effect on the latter part of the plot. He then got killed off unceremoniously and I was more confused than disappointed by his sudden death so early in the work. The second example is the eastern duke's younger son who is a vile schemer dying in Colin's hands before he can be a real problem, while I do find his death gratifying cuz he is annoying af, I also lament a bit about the lost potential of a cockroach villain.

Then of course there is the issue of the author moonlighting as an author and got a bunch of health issues popping up so he had to drop the work fast.

My question is, how much do you as an author listens to the whims of your readers, so much so that it irreversibly screw with your planned plot?

And yes, my main objective of the question is for money. Specifically, how much would you write what you want and how much would you write for the readers' (and subsequently payers') sake. Because writing is a free* hobby that can pay the bills if used properly. I am not using it properly. T_T

*Assuming that you have not paid for artworks, either because you are a good artist as well (in that case, bless you and damn you) , you go for the free stuff online or just go NIP.

My novel An Explorer's Guide, was written as a non romance in the start. I got plenty of readers over at RR for it. After all, they don't like romance over there. And I wrote it with that in mind. Yes, well, I did the one thing I could not in The Apple Grotto Nymph. I wrote a good romance...a boy love one. And people got a wind of it and bombed my rating over there. So, I brought the book over to SH and warned people it had turned into a BL.

And, as a result, managed to complete it and got myself out of my bad mood and completed a novella and began writing a new book, for which I already have 45 chapters. So, while I am not making any money out of my writing, I am stopping myself from forgetting the English language (I am Bulgarian, so, not a native English speaker) and now I can type 1k words in 30 minutes, while before it took me an hour.

Don't expect to pay the bills with novels. Get a job and write in your spare time. I write in the mornings. From 5-8:10. But, then again, I have never been able to go to bed late. So, there.