What Writing Battle taught me about knowing your audience

A writer participated in short fiction contests and received eye-opening feedback from peer judges. The writer’s story, a supernatural mystery set in a Korean church, didn’t resonate with readers unfamiliar with Christianity or Korean culture. Feedback included confusion about biblical references, needing to Google a K-pop star, and difficulty distinguishing between two characters with the same last name. The experience highlighted the importance of understanding a reader’s existing knowledge base. The writer now sees the value in demographic targeting to signal the knowledge base needed to understand a story, acknowledging readers’ impatience with unfamiliar references.

• People who were 100% not my audience —nor were being paid—were compelled by the contest to explain why my story didn’t work.
• Readers come in with a base of knowledge; from their culture, job, experience, reading habits. When you step outside of that knowledge base, you risk losing the reader.
• Tagging a couple demographics tells people which knowledge base they’ll need to immediately understand what’s going on and people are really impatient about knowing what’s going on.

Source: Reddit r/writing  | 
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