Picking our Stories' Focus Elements

Everyone wants to experience different things when they read. Some want an escape, some want their minds and values challenged, some want to be able to relate and be moved and some just want a good laugh. I personally prefer books that move me and remind me of my own experiences and especially my own relationships. I want to feel the characters love for each other and their goals and be able to feel at home in their world as well as mine.
What do you look for in your entertainment? Think of your favorite books or movies; the ones that you simply must just sit for a while afterwards and smile; the ones you experience over and over again and somehow still fall in love with each time. This is what we want readers experiencing when they read our work.
How do we accomplish this? We know our audience. Everyone has different preferences, so we generally write what would please us and those who share our opinions concerning the elements in their literature. We need to use elements from all the things we love in our own entertainment and weave together something that will get our audience experiencing—as deeply as possible—the things they are looking for. Whether that be in characters, worldbuilding, theme, plot, relationships, or better yet; a beautiful mix of them all.


First of all, I’d like to apologize for my lack of posts over the summer. It’s been a crazy couple months but hopefully I can get back into the stride of things this fall.

Secondly; it was rather difficult to put these specific ideas into words in this post so I would humbly accept any comments or criticism ;). I will also be delving deeper into this subject—though on a slight tangent--with my next post concerning Aristotle’s six elements of theatre and relating them to literature.