We write to please an audience, that’s true. If no one is interested in your novel, then it follows that there won’t be many sales. Ultimately, however, there is an audience of one that must be pleased: YOU. If you can please that singular audience well, then your chances dramatically improve of pleasing a far larger audience.

OK, step away from the computer for just a moment and ask yourself if you are passionate about what you are writing. If you aren’t, or if your interest begins to wane half-way through your story, then your audience’s interest is likely to diminish as well. You don’t want your best apostles out there, your buyers, saying to a friend, “Yeah, it had a good start, but it got boring in the middle. So, I put it down and never got back to it.” You really want your audience saying…truthfully… “I couldn’t put it down!”

If that is the reaction that you are looking for, then write with passion, no matter what your genre or story.

When I wrote “For All The Marbles”, it was not a personal story, but it felt that way, and without spoiling the plot, the final few paragraphs were written with tears blocking my view. The reports I’m getting are that readers are experiencing the same tears. That tells me that the emotion I felt for my protagonist is being carried over to the readers.

If you have that passion for your story, then you will write with passion. Ultimately, readers will “get it” and experience that passion for themselves. They will “own” the story. So, if you are wondering about what to write, then find something that you are already passionate about. My stories have a lot of the passion I feel about politics, education, and personal responsibility woven throughout. I hope that others like it, but I’m creating my characters out of the “cloth” of my own personal feelings and opinions. I’m telling these stories for me. Others may decide to come along for the ride. There’s no “sales formula” that is guiding me.

If you are halfway through your story and growing listless, then stand down for as long as it takes you to find your passion, then go at it again with new gusto. You will find new energy comes with your new passion.

Write on!

JR

www.jackriston.com

www.forallthemarbles.net