Consider the Average Reader

One of my favorite books is Kurt Vonnegut's Timequake, which is part time travel story, part memoir. In fifty years when everyone's forgot about it, I'm going to write my own. With dragons. That breath time.

Anyway, in Timequake Vonnegut says that every author writes for one specific person. He claimed he wrote for his sister Alice, who died decades before this particular book came out. KV, as I call him when I visit his grave, said that every author crafts the story so that this one specific person will enjoy it.

I like to write (SURPRISE! I also like to steal, but I have medication for that), and I like to think I write with my mother in mind. She's very easy to please. The two leads must be happy at the end. Evil must be vanquished, and if someone falls down and it's funny, so much the better.

Recently back in Arkansas where my parents live, there have been nasty snowstorms. Wood is scarce, and no one leaves their houses for fear of frost giants. Though they don't have cable, my parents do have Netflix, and in the course of the blizzard have watched many movies, including The Last Airbender. Afterward, my mother emailed me to ask some questions (she incorrectly references the movie as The Last Hairbender).

On returning home, we watched the Last Hairbender.....and loved it!!!!!!  But i have some unanswered questions......

• when will the little boy avatar learn to use his earth and fire bending skills?
• Who will teach him?
• Will the Prince of the Fire nation turn from the darkness to the light and become friends with the Avatar?
• What happens to the white-haired water princess who gave her life for the glowing fish....will she be resurrected?
• Does the majority of the people who see this movie understand the false theology sublimely embedded in the mystic spirituality of the film?
• When is the next sequel coming out?

Since I haven't seen it, I couldn't answer her (maybe you can). But I look at these and see some basic elements that, when I write, I need to cover in order to make my mom happy, including closure and possibly a redemption plot. But she's definitely hooked.