How deliberate are you when it comes to writing for your audience? (With McCall Hoyle!)

Today is our last day with McCall, but if you’ve enjoyed soaking up her writerly wisdom then you can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Also, if you like contemporary YA, you should definitely add Meet The Sky to your to-read list. ​Seventeen-year-old Sophie wants to keep her fractured family together. She’s all about sticking to a plan–keeping the family business running, saving money for college, and making sure her mom and sister don’t endure another tragedy. Then a hurricane forms off the coast of the Outer Banks, and Sophie realizes nature is the one thing she can’t control. To make matters worse, she’s stranded in the middle of the storm with Finn, the boy who broke her heart freshman year.

Our last question with McCall is:

How deliberate are you when it comes to writing for your audience? Do you write with a specific audience in mind or do you write the story for yourself and hope it finds an crowd? 

McCall: I read a lot in a wide variety of genres so that I’m familiar with what kind of works and doesn’t work in different genres. I don’t really write with a specific audience in mind. I write what feels natural to me. Most of the time, what feels natural to me is writing from a teenage girl’s point of view.

I’m not sure what that says about me. I’d love to say that it means I’m young at heart, and hip, and cool. I think what it really says is that the hardest part of my life was being a teenage girl, so I have lots and lots of authentic emotions and material to write from that perspective.

Shan:  I am deliberate. It’s something I think about a lot now that I’m not writing solely for myself. Once you decide to write with the goal of publication, I think you have to be more intentional. If not, you’re hoping to luck into something that might fit on a shelf. I think there’s a time and place for that kind of writing, but currently, I’m writing very specifically.

Jill: I also set out writing for teens, though my books have been published for adults and I’ve also written for children. I do usually set out to write a book that’s geared toward a specific audience, but I’ll promote it to all my readers whether it’s a kids book or one for grown ups. That might hurt me, sales wise, but I have to write what interests me, and my ideas refuse to fit the same audience with any regularity!