Audience

My last post naturally led me into this post. The question of reference, of deciding how obscure of a joke I should make, really depends on who my audience is. How do I, as a writer, decide who I should be writing for?

So far, I have found two models that say who to write for. The first one is the business model. Whatever group will pay me the most money is the group I will write for. Now, the common convention is that no more than 10% of your readership will ever pay you any money. It's a law of nature, so there is no use in arguing it. Seeing as how I am part of the 90% that is cheap as hell and just wants the free comic, I can't say that I blame them. However, it does mean that I would need to have a massive readership in order to make livable amounts of money.

In order to get the greatest quantity of people to laugh, though, I need to be writing jokes that are universal to everybody. However, as T-Rex so eloquently points out, "Let's say I have a joke about how cats like to sleep. NOT VERY FUNNY." He also says that, "The more obscure a joke is, the less people there are who'll get it, but the MORE they'll find it correspondingly HILARIOUS!" (He shouts a lot with his words, but I forgive him for being right when he talks.) Now, I don't have the gall to try to write a comic so obscure that only one human being will enjoy it, strictly in the hopes that I will receive large caches of cash out of it.

Ironically enough, though, the second writing model involves writing for exactly one person: me. This is the creative model. It says that as long as you make a comic that you enjoy reading, you will always have an audience of at least one. This also makes for better comics. Good ideas come from interested writers. When your hobby becomes a chore, your work suffers. If you started this for fun, you should have fun while doing it.

People resonate with what they like. As long as you make a quality product and get the word out well enough, people will naturally find you, and the ones who like your style will follow your work. That is why I use the creative model. It guarantees I will make good work, and I know that I can do what is needed to bring the audiences close enough for my work to draw them in.