A week ago, or so, a friend of mine invited me out for some day drinking at one of the hip, trendy bars. The Texas heat hadn't settled in just yet, so I decided to go, to step away from my computer and my piles of chapters that I'd been revising and re-revising for weeks. I ironed a shirt, which I hadn't done in months, slicked my hair back, and headed out of the house.
The patio teemed with young people drinking beers and laughing, girls sitting on boys laps, couples hovering over tables waiting for some place to sit down, and several others yelling at the TV. This one guy fell down a few feet away from us and rolled into a wooden pole. The entire patio cheered. At some point in the conversation, a guy I'd just met points to me and says, "I don't mean to be rude, but do you have some sort of sweating problem? I mean, how come you're wearing an undershirt. I don't understand. Who wears undershirts except people with sweating problems?"
I said, "Well, I definitely sweat, but that's not why I'm wearing an undershirt. I've always worn an undershirt. It feels inappropriate to me not to."
The guy shrugged and muttered something about how ridiculous that sounded, so I asked the rest of the table if I was truly ridiculous for wearing an undershirt. The table agreed. They'd all noticed and didn't want to be the one to say anything. But they all wondered why in the world I would wear an undershirt, unless I had some kind of sweating problem.
That night, I called my friends and told them this story. They each said they wore undershirts when they went out and that they feel inappropriate not wearing one. So what's the deal? Is it a generational thing? Is it a geographic thing? I grew up in Houston, but now live in Dallas. I was born in the 70s, and the people we were out with were born in the 90s. People coming from different places and times think differently about fashion, right? Or was I always ridiculous?
This got me thinking about my writing. Knowing and understanding your audience is key to being able to reach them with a message. I'm currently writing a series geared toward a younger audience, yet clearly there is a disconnect between me and the youth of today. Don't worry, my series is not about a bunch of kids running around inappropriately wearing undershirts. But still, there's something disingenuous about writing books for a segment of the population about which I actually know very little.
I tell this story not because I have newly learned insight into the America's youth. Instead, I'm telling this story as a warning to other writers. Think about your audience before you start your next big project. Who are you writing for? What do you know about them? You must understand who you are trying to reach, otherwise you are going to be the only person at the party wearing an undershirt and everyone will be staring at you, wondering if you are simply ridiculous or if you have a weird sweating problem.
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