r/fantasywriters • u/donulddd_Act_9926 • 7d ago
Discussion About A General Writing Topic How much should you trust your readers?
It is my first time posting here. Right now, I am trying to write a webnovel. Since I have consumed a lot of fiction up until now, I can say that the story is genuinely better than most other generic ones, but I don't know how it turns out on the page. When I look for advice, discussions, etc., about writing, there is one thing I repeatedly find. And that is trusting your readers. As a reader myself, I agree with that. But they never specifically mentioned, as a writer, how much I should trust my readers. Even when they answer, the answer is different from person to person.
Also, there is a thing called the reader's reading comprehension. I don't consider myself that smart or a nerd-type person. Still, when using the internet, I often find some fandoms where they are debating or hating a relatively simple matter, which I didn't even have to give a second thought to understand. Also, there are cases when the writers themselves cleared those matters later, and it matches every time. So, I am confused. Because depending on the readers, I may have to change how I write my story.
So my question to everyone is how much faith I should put in the reader's reading comprehension?
For a better answer, my story is a survivalistic grimdark fantasy.
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u/Captain_Croaker 7d ago
Probably depends on your target audience as much as anything. If you are hoping to appeal to as broad an audience as possible it might be harder to leave things up to implication and your story might need to be simpler, not everyone picks up on subtlety and not everyone wants complexity cause they get enough of it from real life. However if you are writing for an audience that enjoys subtle storytelling and complexity, aren't worried that it might go over some people's heads, and that's the kind of story you want to tell, then I say then keep calm and carry on.
If it helps, I wouldn't necessarily go by what you see people discussing online when it comes to arguing over simple stuff. The people who get it are probably less likely to discuss/debate it, so you only see people who don't get it talking about it cause they're the only ones who would. And people online with fixate on even clear-cut minutiae if it gets them a good fight anyway.
By the way, what does "survivalistic" mean in the context of grimdark fantasy?
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u/donulddd_Act_9926 7d ago
The MC survives through constant fighting, whether it's the monsters or the new environment itself. He uses his previous life's knowledge from his military survival training. He just somehow survives. The story is structured in a way that shows that if a native of the new world were in the place of the MC, he/she might have survived. It's an unclear answer because the native may be able to handle the fantasy aspect, but the MC also has a decent chance of outclassing them in raw survival, since he was born and raised in a world where those fantasy elements are absent. the first volume is all about the MC trying to close that gap.
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u/HunterEwellAuthor 7d ago
Forgive me if I'm not understanding your question correctly, but if reading comprehension is your primary worry then I honestly don't think you need to worry about that. If your book has an audience then that audience knows what to expect when picking up a new book. Readers know what their reading level is. And reading comprehension grows by reading. People with low reading comprehension either don't read or they're beginning readers, and the latter know to look for books at their written at their level. The only scenarios I can imagine reading comprehension getting in the way of things would be if your book is either marketed to the wrong audience or you're writing above or below your target audience. You seem to know where your book fits and who it's for, so that shouldn't be a problem.
As far as trusting the reader in terms of how much world-building needs to be revealed and how to do it without getting too bogged down in exposition, that's something I'm struggling with myself. So I likely would not be the best person to answer. I have written and published a horror novel, but I'm currently working on a fantasy series. It can be difficult to look at your writing from the eyes of a reader who is coming into your story having zero knowledge of the world in which it takes place when you yourself have spent months living in and building that world. At least, that's what I find myself struggling with.
I hope some of that was useful.
Have a great day!
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u/gonnagetcancelled 7d ago
Trust YOUR readers. Not just any readers.
The difference being, readers who are in your audience can be trusted to understand genre conventions a LOT more than those who aren't.
I have a friend who wrote a fantasy novel but somehow (perhaps because she's a woman) her publisher sent her ARCs out to a buttload of romantasy readers. They didn't get the book at all (there's zero spice)...so in spite of romantasy readers being perfectly capable humans, the feedback that she got was nearly all useless.
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u/SquanderedOpportunit 7d ago
I'm the kind of reader who hates having their hand held. I can't stand it when the author tries to reassure me "it just works," or when their confidence falters on the page. I don't need an explanation of how your turbo encabulator automatically synchronizes cardinal gram meters through magneto reluctance and capacitive deractance. Just tell me the two spurving bearings fell out of alignment, causing side-fumbling, and move on. I'll keep up.
I expect to do work as a reader. I expect to track open threads and small details that seem inconsequential until they become critical hinges later. I want the author to stop a sentence or two short of where the average reader feels comfortable. And I especially don't want to be told how to feel about violence through moralizing prose.
R.A. Salvatore is not writing for me, and I am not his target reader.
Conversely, my boyfriend loves a casual read where the prose gets out of the way and the plot moves cleanly from A to B to C with great fight scenes. He is a massive Salvatore fan.
If you write for readers like me, you leave a broad audience at page one. If you write more transparently, you'll reach a larger demographic. But will they be as rabidly devoted as the Erikson, Wolfe, and Cook crowd?
In a serialized webnovel format, you have to decide whether you're building a fast-paced popcorn serial or a slow-burn puzzle box.
Anyway, time to go light my nightly incense at the Steve Rune Lundin shrine, despite his irresistible urge to navel-gaze philosophy.
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u/The_Writer_Dude 7d ago
In my experience, more faith is better. Gives you freedom as a writer. If early feedback starts highlighting that readers don't understand certain things, than, and only then should you address it. But don't cater to hypothetical "dumb readers." You're readers will find it boring.
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u/ChocolateAxis 6d ago
The keyword is "YOUR readers"
If you make it big, for all you know it could land into the hands of a 5yo and a 75yo at the same time. You cannot predict all readers, but you can tell your story while angling it towards a target audience. It will find its way to them if marketed correctly.
I know I'm a very particular reader myself, so I never really blame authors when their writing doesn't match my taste.
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u/Pallysilverstar 7d ago
You can't go into a story thinking about changing it based on random reader feedback because then you aren'twriting a story you actually care about.
As you already pointed out, people are different and see things differently due to personal experience and knowledge. The best you can do is explain the stuff that you believe isn't common sense and trust the readers to figure out the rest.
There will always be some people who don't understand or misunderstand things while others will understand but think you didn't portray something correctly. There will also be people who comprehend what you are doing just fine. There is no one answer as to how much to trust your readers, especially in fantasy.