Mind Your Audience
A character in my work in progress said that the invading aliens could “Invade my nuts”.
To my dismay, a much older member of my writers group honestly asked me what I meant by that phrase. “What does invasion mean to you?” is what he asked.
A voice in my head yelled, “What do these nuts mean to you?” Instead I told him that if he didn’t understand the phrase then it’s not for him.
Several other older members of the group chimed in and said they didn’t understand the phrase either but that it was clearly a colloquialism with negative connotation. I had never felt so naïve and taken-aback in a workshop setting. I felt on display. How could I explain “my nuts” to my older counterparts?
Here’s the point.
You have to remember your audience. Sure, I’m talking about writing, because that’s what I do. But, in general, anybody and everybody has to mind their respective audience. If you don’t, no matter how much sense you make, no matter what angle you take, you will be misunderstood. The joke won’t hit. The analogy won’t make sense. The metaphor will be lost. You have to keep your audience in mind to communicate in a way so they can hear you.
Through tone and possibly advertisement, and even in diction, you have to audience in mind.
It’s kind of like going to a movie. If it is advertised like a comedy, I’ll prepare myself to laugh. If they say it’s a drama, I’ll prepare myself to be anxious and sad and junk. Man, if you go into a movie thinking you’re about to watch Dumb and Dumber but instead find yourself watching Silence of the Lambs, you’re going to be disappointed, not because Silence of the Lambs isn’t a quality picture but rather you wanted comedy and Silence of the Lambs has zero laughs. Jim Carrey as Hannibal Lecture might draw a crowd, but that’s another topic.
Speaking your opinions, and being creative in a way that adheres to your current audience sounds like obvious advice, like no duh. However, all I can say to that is “my nuts”, and here’s why: everything you do carries your language with you, even incidentally. In a written story, what you write filters through the tone of the work in the same way words filter through an individual’s body language. Check your body language before you speak and act. Adjust the context.
Getting back to “my nuts”, if I would have executed the tone of the scene properly and set-up the scene adequately so readers could understand it, older dudes and all, they might have engaged it to my liking. But I didn’t set it up the best. I basically yelled “my nuts!” in a crowded room and thought, damn, you old people just don’t get it.
Realistically, for the tone I wrote it in, it was all wrong. Then I used language that no reader outside of a handful would readily embrace, even if they understood. As a revision I might write: Tony grabbed his groin, and sneered. “This is what I think about aliens invading.”
The revision might not be how I originally wanted to express the moment, but it’s the same moment, and still the same character, but this time, hopefully people other than myself will appreciate the character grabbing his nuts.
By all means enjoy my new novel The Secret Deaths of Arthur Lowe https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Deaths-...
It's free right now at Amazon.com. Thanks for reading this post.
To my dismay, a much older member of my writers group honestly asked me what I meant by that phrase. “What does invasion mean to you?” is what he asked.
A voice in my head yelled, “What do these nuts mean to you?” Instead I told him that if he didn’t understand the phrase then it’s not for him.
Several other older members of the group chimed in and said they didn’t understand the phrase either but that it was clearly a colloquialism with negative connotation. I had never felt so naïve and taken-aback in a workshop setting. I felt on display. How could I explain “my nuts” to my older counterparts?
Here’s the point.
You have to remember your audience. Sure, I’m talking about writing, because that’s what I do. But, in general, anybody and everybody has to mind their respective audience. If you don’t, no matter how much sense you make, no matter what angle you take, you will be misunderstood. The joke won’t hit. The analogy won’t make sense. The metaphor will be lost. You have to keep your audience in mind to communicate in a way so they can hear you.
Through tone and possibly advertisement, and even in diction, you have to audience in mind.
It’s kind of like going to a movie. If it is advertised like a comedy, I’ll prepare myself to laugh. If they say it’s a drama, I’ll prepare myself to be anxious and sad and junk. Man, if you go into a movie thinking you’re about to watch Dumb and Dumber but instead find yourself watching Silence of the Lambs, you’re going to be disappointed, not because Silence of the Lambs isn’t a quality picture but rather you wanted comedy and Silence of the Lambs has zero laughs. Jim Carrey as Hannibal Lecture might draw a crowd, but that’s another topic.
Speaking your opinions, and being creative in a way that adheres to your current audience sounds like obvious advice, like no duh. However, all I can say to that is “my nuts”, and here’s why: everything you do carries your language with you, even incidentally. In a written story, what you write filters through the tone of the work in the same way words filter through an individual’s body language. Check your body language before you speak and act. Adjust the context.
Getting back to “my nuts”, if I would have executed the tone of the scene properly and set-up the scene adequately so readers could understand it, older dudes and all, they might have engaged it to my liking. But I didn’t set it up the best. I basically yelled “my nuts!” in a crowded room and thought, damn, you old people just don’t get it.
Realistically, for the tone I wrote it in, it was all wrong. Then I used language that no reader outside of a handful would readily embrace, even if they understood. As a revision I might write: Tony grabbed his groin, and sneered. “This is what I think about aliens invading.”
The revision might not be how I originally wanted to express the moment, but it’s the same moment, and still the same character, but this time, hopefully people other than myself will appreciate the character grabbing his nuts.
By all means enjoy my new novel The Secret Deaths of Arthur Lowe https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Deaths-...
It's free right now at Amazon.com. Thanks for reading this post.
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