Like most authors I’ve had quite the battle with this one.
Trying to get the balance right seems completely dependent on the way people think.
If you were writing a book for a specific person, it would be easy.
Probably still easy-ish for a small group of people.
But when you are writing for an unknown subset of the beings on this planet, otherwise known as an audience, where do you pitch things?
How do you choose which words to use, when your audience might use a variety of different letter-groupings to describe the same thing —I’m looking at you ‘first floor’.
Or, do you avoid words that some of your audience are convinced aren’t words —like ‘flummoxed’? I was definitely that word to find out this can actually be the case.
And, do you tell yourself not to invent words that seem perfect for the situation, just because you might get tradnaggled by the literary police. I may still get told off by that organisation yet… but perhaps that’s why I’ve used a pen name.
Maybe that’s the point though, books should be a different experience for all.
But… then how do you quantify what you’ve written —ever.
How can you tell if it’s good?
How can you tell when it is ready to release?
Perhaps all the hard work, all the thinking, all the tweaking is so that you give everyone a good enough framework —one that everyone else’s imagination can springboard from?
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