Learning About My Audience

This week I talked to a friend of mine and her teenage daughter. It was a great conversation, though dotted with interruptions from my four-year old wanting her daughter to play. We talked a lot about what middle school was like for her being popular, but not part of the "ruling popular clique." She really opened my eyes to how different some aspects of the student's experiences are today from what I remember, but then how similar they are at the same time. You still have students that want to be revered for power and popularity, but now they have so many way to push around their "weight" without face to face confrontations, thus making them more bold. The Internet with places like My Space and the use of texting allow students to basically bully other with out the fear of being "seen" immediately by teachers or parents and also allows them to do it from a far. This expands the possibilities for far more bullying than was possible just ten years ago, throughout the day and night.

The boldness of the students also struck me as something that I didn't see when I was in a much larger school system many years ago. She spoke of times in the lunch room that one of the "ruling popular clique" would go up to one of the other students who had been picked out as a target, and begin yelling at her about some made up rumor that this person was suppose to be spreading about the "clique." The girl that I talked to felt that the reason that she had been left alone was simply because she was friends with a couple of the girls in the "ruling popular clique" but was glad not to be one of them. She could not believe how mean they could be, and at the end of middle grade was glad to go do a different high school than her current classmates and make new friends.

We also talked about what had interested her in reading. She had not liked to read as an elementary student, but that turned around during her upper elementary/middle school years. We talked about what had brought this change around. She said that she found books that were very emotionally moving, they were about subjects where people were experiencing major life changes and struggles, family members or friends with terminal illness, or deaths, that sort of thing. It was the emotional connection that she felt with characters and their story that really drew her in and had her coming back for more. Her mom said the books reminded her of books that she would read, but on her daughters level.

This made me think back to my experience with reading. I was a VERY reluctant reader early on in school, to the point of avoiding it at all cost. In Junior High (yes that is what it was called way back when I attended) my mother began to let me choose what ever books I wanted to read, and I began reading the Sweet Vally High books. I just could not get enough of those characters and their lives. They were so neat and unlike what I was (I was so shy and introverted). But when I really think about it the emotions of the characters, how they worked things out with one another, developed friendships, fell in love. Those were the things that kept me coming back and still do today.

These reluctant readers, including the one I see in my daughter, is why I am so passionate about writing. My ultimate goal is to help reluctant readers, fall in love with books, and the written stories. For them to experience the what true entertainment is through a book because it can live in your mind for months, years and sometimes the really good ones a life time. I have books that although I have read them several times already, I will never get rid of them, because I know I will want to read them again and again. In the entertainment world movies are what seem to get all the attention, but they can only entertain you for an hour and a half to two hours or so and compared to how a book can touch a reader the movie only scrapes the surface. If you don't understand what I mean, watch a movie that is based on a book, then read the book. No matter how good the cast, director or producer there are elements that just can't be portrayed like a book can impart. I would rather have a good book ANYDAY instead of an excellent movie.

If I could write just one book that could change the way one reluctant reader looks at reading, I would feel like the successful author that I want to be. This is why I am wanting to get to know this precious age group who are trying to figure out who they are, what their place is in the world, and how to fit in with the rest of their peers. The better understanding I can have of them, the better hope I can have of being able to reach them through my writing.