I'm writing professionally and I don't give my audience too much thought if any. All my thoughts are in my writing. I want to impress my lover. I hope to impress an editor. But an audience? Everyone? That's too much to think about. When I write I focus on what I'm writing. I'm not afraid of taking risks or failure. Honestly, after I sell something and before I publish I do get a little nervous, especially if where I'm publishing is a big deal. But I can't think of that while writing. I don't even think that's a good idea to think about the audience while writing. I see no good coming from attempts to please the world. For me, writing is not a popularity contest. It's about my voice. It's my quiet protest or the way I see things. I've been doing pretty well lately. But I don't know who my audience is. I know a lot of people read my stuff because a lot of people read these publications. That freaks me out a little or maybe even a lot. It's hard not to feel like a fraud even with success. So, this professional writer likes to forget all about the audience. And I don't think I'm wasting my time.
When millions of people go see a film or read a book, there's no guarantee they're a member of the intended audience. Most of the time people do not take time to deeply consider if they belong to the "target audience". They just think, "Oh, Game of Thrones? It's for me!" It's actually more complicated than that. Not everybody who enjoyed the books is going to enjoy the show, and not everybody who enjoyed the books *and* the show will enjoy the board game, etc. As a caveat, I would say it's usually impossible to completely determine if you're the intended audience or not. The only way to know for sure is to see how you feel about the purchase and expenditure of your time afterward. I propose that an intended audience cannot be wrong, but factions of the broader "audience" can be. Zooming in further, I would say that an individual member of the intended audience can be wrong, but the whole "intended audience" can't be. It's as if the bigger and bigger the intended audience gets, the harder it is for everyone to be wrong about x or y. Go figure. One person, two people, three people can be inattentive or fall asleep during a key moment or forget something, but rarely millions. I'm sure there's very specific exceptions one could concoct in their imagination, or find by digging through the archives, but on the whole this would be the view I hold. It also comes down to how you want to define right or wrong here. Since we're almost entirely in the realm of subjectivity, this seems to be determined by mass consensus. If it's writer vs. intended audience, the writer is at fault when there is a problem. When it's factions of the audience warring against one another? The dynamics change. If the writer doesn't have an intended audience other than him or herself, and leaves it up to others to make of it what they will, that's different. But that wouldn't apply within the context of GoT here. I've only just started the very first book and don't plan on going out of my way to watch the show. It clearly isn't for those who enjoy the books, although that might've been the intention in the first few seasons (judging from others' comments here); to me it seems like one would be wrong to assume that one will enjoy something just because they'd enjoyed it in another medium. At the end of the day it's almost never useful for me, as the writer, to take any position other than I'm at fault. When aiming at an intended audience, you want an appropriate weapon for the job. If you want to impress a girl, consider a pistol. If you want to attract a crowd, try a shotgun. If you want to please the world, you better start figuring out how to split atoms in your basement. I myself don't worry much about audience. I find anything except the briefest considerations of audience to be stifling and paralyzing. Same as @deadrats above me, it would seem. But regarding that, I'm not going further than this mention.
This makes a little more sense to me, though I'm still not sure I'm entirely on board. We know people can be wrong, and that groups of people can be spectacularly wrong. That's human nature. Why should there be an exception for an artistic audience?
Actually, we don't know that groups of people—or individuals for that matter—can be wrong to any degree on subjective questions.
I think writers of series (either TV or books) are at fault IF they don't know where the story is heading when they start. Unlike writers of fiction, who can edit stories before they publish them, a TV series can't do that. Once it gets started, that's it. (Same with a series of books, once the first one gets published.) Sometimes the writers end up creating more situations than they can handle. Situations that seem like a cool idea at the time. Cliffhangers that get the audience to return for the next season. But if the writers don't have focus and don't know what's going to happen next, the final result is often horribly disappointing. People are always citing Lost as a famous example of this kind of series. Started great, then evolved into a mess. I very much doubt if you can blame Lost's audience for being disappointed when the writers themselves admitted later on that they hadn't a clue what they were doing. I contrast that with Farscape. The Farscape writers knew exactly where the story was going and how all the major threads would tie up. They planned to do it in 5 seasons. They were given the go-ahead for Season Five right up to when they finished filming Season Four. Then suddenly the series was cancelled, leaving lots of loose ends and one hell of an unpleasant cliffhanger 'ending.' Fans were horrified. However, when the fan protest finally got the producers to allow a four-episode 'finale,' the writers WERE able to wrap up the show in a satisfactory manner. The final four episodes were truncated (instead of the 22 episodes the writers had expected) and the pace was frantic. But at least all the story arcs were addressed, and things seemed to end exactly as they should have done. There were even a few surprises thrown in. Us Farscape fans WERE cheated out of our final, well-paced 22-episode series, but not by the writers. The writers knew what they were doing. And because they were able to deliver earned closure, we went away happy.
I will never non get tired of using this series as an example: James Patterson's Maximum Ride series. it started off good; character development, personality, descriptions, etc. Then, after things were looking like it was ready to be wrapped up, he CONTINUES it by adding unnecessary story arch (main character has a clone/twin... but not only that... scientist made her a "perfect partner" and global warming, and the environment, and science, and blah...). I couldn't read past book 5! At one point, the MC was described as having mousy brown hair (even reflected on the early covers) being average, and all of a sudden, book 4 has her with curly blonde hair, then all the covers after have her as this straight blond haired "it" girl with NOT EXPLANATION WHAT SO EVER and the book picks up directly after the events of the other. It wasnt my failure as a reader to just not get it.... I have read other books with ending that seemed forced or rushed because it didnt quite fit with the beginning and middle of the book. I get that writer have deadlines and contracts, and that may account for some of the hasty writing (or continued series when the series could have and should have ended long ago). on the other hand, I am on book 11 of a series and over all, i've enjoyed it. Yet there are some books that i've enjoyed more than others and I feel like that is probably a "me" problem vs the author because I'm just not in to some of the things in the plot (for example, one book the MC's conflict is with the government, then in another book, its a the vampire coven, and in another its werewolves, then sea creatures, etc. I wasnt really in to the vampire-creating-super-monster plot but REALLY enjoyed the werewolves vs government plot... but thats just me)
Entirely agree. I'd argue that most TV shows haven't got a clue what they're doing. Far too often, and I'll use Heroes as an example here, they put everything they have into the first season because they have no idea if they'll be renewed, then when they are, they have no idea what to do. Heroes season 2 was essentially just season 1 redone. The whole thing fell apart because there was no overall plan. That seems like the norm for network television anymore.
