Ana's Final Essay: Audience?

For whom should LDS authors write?

LDS authors’ writings should be able to incorporate the general audience. Their works should be written in a way where people who are not of the LDS faith can understand. If they only write to an LDS audience, in a way only they can understand, the author is limited in their audience and who they are able to market to.  

Based on the topic, sometimes the author’s work should only be written for an LDS audience. If the topic isn’t sensitive or pertains to LDS culture, then it would be wise to expand the work’s audience to both members and non-members, and write it in such a way they all can understand the content and story—even if it is a sort of allegory for members.

When the author writes to both a non-LDS and LDS community, they are able to, not only increase their sales, but their books have the possibility to become more popular, as well as the fact that they belong to a certain faith—ex. Shannon Hale, Stephany Meyer, or Orson Scott Card. However, when the general audience discovers the author’s faith, sometimes they think what the author writes is a representation of the author’s faith. This was especially true with Stephany Meyer’s the Twilight series and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (as well as his Seventh Son).

Depending on the genre or the author’s humor, the LDS culture can sometimes (or often) slip into their writing. This can affect their audience, as only about half the audience may get some of the things they’ll read. Also, depending on how and where the author was raised, they might not be able to cater to the audience they want because they’re only used to a certain culture. This scenario is especially true for genres such as realistic fiction, non-fiction, and less so for science fiction and fantasy (ex. Seventh Son, even though it’s based on Joseph Smith, the book written in a way that even people who know nothing about Church history can get into the story). However, even some LDS fiction that isn’t in the realms of sf/f can be enjoyed by any person—for example, Martine Leavitt’s My Book of Life by Angel, as it was written about a sensitive topic that not too many people think about too often, without including lines that only members would understand.

Homespun and Angel Feathers covered a lot of LDS topics, and it was published for an LDS audience, yet some of the poems included were written in a way any person would laugh at (for example, “The Guys I didn’t Marry”, which was focused less on the LDS culture, but more about her personal life with relationships. Darlene Young’s poetry collection won’t get a lot of traffic, not only because of the publisher, but also because it’s poetry, so it doesn’t always have to do with the topic; sometimes it’s the type of writing (like poetry). Because she had to write it for an LDS audience, it decreases the chances of being read even more.

The best type of LDS writing is writing that can be understood by anyone (such as Orson Scott Card’s Seventh Son).