Do you try to write a story you think everyone will like?

Supposedly when you write a story, you're meant to write it from the heart. Meaning that the story you write should be a story you love, not a story your age demographic would love. Anyway, this assumption is both agreeable and disagreeable. I feel if you don't put enough love (love here meaning a passion or dedication of sorts) into your story, it'll feel empty and the characters won't be as wholesome and it'll just lack something. You'll notice with a lot of overrated epic novels that the author got bored in various parts and essentially rushed to get to the good bits or to finish it.

However, I feel that if you write a book strictly for yourself, it'll suck. Seriously. Look at Twilight and 50 Shades of Sh*t. Both the authors had like, a wet dream about their story and wrote it for personal porn. And then they marketed it, and both were bloody rubbish. Honestly, if I wrote a book for myself, I'd probably write a story about having the hottest, richest guy ever and all the guys chasing me and being obliviously hot. But I'm a realist. So much so that I'm currently writing a paper on how much I align with political realism. So I'd write a story that I'd love, but I'd try to keep my audience happy by making it not so unbelievably unrealistic.

Well, it's a bad idea to write trying to please EVERYBODY, that usually just makes for bad fiction and it doesn't work. However, if you ignore all possible readership and just do what you wanna, it won't be very successful. You do have to keep the reader in mind when you write a story. If you are writing a children's book, don't use a bunch of swear words, even if that's what you want to do. You can't let yourself and your novel be the rope in a tug of war between readers, but you also can't just throw the game away, if you get my meaning. It's a balance.

No, because trying to please the reader so much would make me stray too much from the things I enjoy about my own writing. I don't really write for others, I write for myself. I like to stay true to my own story, or at least the center of it. I do take feedback from readers on how to improve the story itself, but I don't change the whole thing over just so they'll like the story. Everyone has their own opinion, and I find that I'm happiest if I just write what I want to, and find someone else who enjoys it too.

The reader is the least thing on my mind when it comes to writing my story. I envision myself as the very first reader of an epic tale.

No. I write the story for myself based on what I like.

Have you ever tried to write something you hate? It reminds me of trying to write an essay for school that I know the teacher would like e.e

I share similar tastes with many people. If I like it, some others will as well. Or at least that's what I tell myself haha

I write what I would want to read, because I may be the only person to ever see those words. If someone else wants to read it, great. If not, okay.

But if I were to write what I think others want to read, instead of following my gut and writing what I want, I will end up hating it. The writing will sound forced, I won't want to finish it, and the hatred that I feel for that piece of writing will come through, making it unpleasant to read anyway.

Besides, why should I write to please someone else? I am putting my time, my effort into it. If people don't like what I write, then they don't have to read it :)

"The only person who doesn't like you when everyone else does is yourself."

That is never my goal. I'm old enough to have learned that it's impossible to please everyone. I am for perfection by my standards. I write the story for myself and let the reader who needs to find it find it.

You write the best story YOU would want to read.

I try to write what I'd like to write. A hypothetical audience is somewhat irrelevant.

I usually write about things that I like. It's easier, and I'm not really thinking of publishing.