art Archives - Page 13 of 19 - Home For Fiction

art

Tortured Artists: Is Suffering Necessary for a Fiction Writer?

April 12, 2021

art, artist, mediocrity, society, suffering

Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Ernest Hemingway. Troubled souls, phenomenal artists. The idea of tortured artists is a sort of a trope or stereotype that wants great artists – writers, painters, musicians – to be constantly frustrated or even self-destructing. But is suffering necessary for a fiction writer? Can “normal” people be exceptional artists?

The truth is, I don’t know. That’s also one reason I’m phrasing the title of this post as a question mark. Based on purely historical precedence, we can draw the following two conclusions regarding tortured artists:

Not all tortured souls become exceptional artists.
Not all exceptional artists are tortured souls.

In other words, I’d say we can’t really reach any safe conclusion regarding tortured artists. What I believe we can do – and it’s the reason this post exists – is attempt to answer the more modest question: Can “normal” people be exceptional artists?

The lessons from this attempt can be very important indeed, because they can let us see the ingredients of a great fiction writer.

(more…)

What Is an Intended Audience?

March 29, 2021

Writing

art, book, intended audience, literature, marketing, publishing, writing

I often refer to “intended audience” in my posts, somewhat assuming we all know what it is. And it’s partly true that most of us have a vague idea. But the proverbial devil is in the details, and in this case understanding what an intended audience is – and why you should care as a writer – can make a hell (no pun intended) of a difference.

Let’s start with the vague idea most of us have about this concept that every author should know about. So, what is the intended audience of a book?

It’s the kind of reader expected to read the book.

And so, we might say that the intended audience of romance fiction is not really upper-class professors of philosophy – though, you never know – but, say, lower-middle-class, middle-aged women.

All this is extremely generic – we haven’t reached the… devil yet – and very superficial. It mostly revolves around marketing considerations, in the sense that it offers an estimate on who is likely to buy a given book.

But the most intriguing aspects of establishing an intended audience have to do with artistic considerations instead, and they are much more complex. Crucially, they are also the most useful for a writer to know, and that’s precisely what I’ll share with you in this post.

(more…)

How to Gauge Your Writing Skills

November 30, 2020

Writing

art, artist, author, fiction, progress, writing

Self-reflection isn’t easy, as humans have a tendency for confirmation bias. To put it bluntly, it’s easier to believe in a comforting lie than to face an ugly truth. Writers are no exception – indeed, as we’ll see, in some sense they’re particularly vulnerable to self-deception, but probably not in the way you’d expect – and as a result they struggle to gauge their writing skills.

gauge writing skills — Gauging your writing skills is about understanding the fault lines between past and present

(more…)