Know Your Reader, Know Your Setting

In the first post of this series, Know Your Reader, Know Your Genre, we discussed the specifics of who our reader is. Age, occupation, interests, etc-and how knowing these details will help us nail down our genre.

For example, my reader is in her late twenties to early forties, SAHM, loves an escape, loves romance, wants a happy ending, enjoys humor. She's a romantic comedy reader.

If you visited the post, there were other questions you could ask yourself about your reader, all of which are going to help you with today's post.

Knowing who my reader is gives me a great formula for where I should set my novel, and even set specific scenes. Romance novels are very commonly set in small towns, and for very good reason. Readers want a cozy, romantic setting. Readers of this genre love community and family and places that are conducive to falling love. If you don't believe me, ask a romance writer (or reader). Ask an agent. Check out Love Inspired stories and single-title romances. You've got seaside communities, small mountain towns, inns, heroines returning to their childhood homes, and the list goes on and on.

So if you're a romance writer, you don't HAVE to write about a small Colorado town that borders the mountains and has a county fair every year, but know that many readers expect and enjoy something similar. And if her job is veterinarian to horses at the heroes barn, or she's redecorating a small B&B, or she serves coffee at the cute bookstore and coffee shop on the corner, it's probably because readers respond to these small-town, community atmospheres and occupations.

Let's look at another genre. How about YA? Your reader is young, your reader wants to read about people his or her age, your readers wants to see a setting, or an environment they're either familiar with (a school for example) or they can picture clearly and relate to. Take the Twilight books. Whether you've read them or not, most of you know they were set in a small, beautiful town where it rains or is cloudy most of the year. It appeals to the reader (specifically a YA audience) because A) it's necessary to the plot, so the setting almost becomes another character in itself and B) it's sort of magical and eerie and unique. Young adults, particularly those into the supernatural, are going to love magical and eerie and unique.

Crime/Drama/Suspense thrillers? Bigger cities, places where there is statistically more crime. Not always, but this is often the case. Instead of a cozy B&B, the heroine visits, lives in, or discovers the crime in a big city loft, a bigger business, maybe even a city alleyway.

There are exceptions to all these rules of course, but really study up on your genre and who your reader is. Our job is to appeal to and reach the reader and sometimes the best way to do that is giving them EXACTLY what they want and expect.

So, do you know what kind of setting your reader wants? Do you typically write about these types of settings or do you go outside of the box and wow readers with new, unique settings?


***photos by DMF Photography and Don Briggs
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Cindy is a Colorado native, living near the mountains with her husband and three beautiful daughters. She writes contemporary Christian romance, seeking to enrich lives with her stories of faith, love, and a touch of humor.

To learn more about Cindy, visit her at her personal blog, www.cindyrwilson.blogspot.com