What some readers claim they want vs what they actually want, from a writer's angle
A little observation from someone who started writing to fill a gap I personally felt as a reader.
Somewhere between fantasy or paranormal stories that rely on the aesthetic of emotion, and serious psychological character drama that, when set in the real world, often feels too constrained.
I always wondered why not use fantasy and paranormal as a lens to speak emotional truth.
And don’t even get me started on massively popular projects readers call “deep” or “trauma heavy” when, if you look closer, they are only using the aesthetic of trauma.
I’ve heard readers say over and over again that they want dark fantasy, real trauma, depth, morally complicated characters.
They want stories that hurt in a good way, stories that go for the throat, stories that deal with real emotion.
Except, and this I learned through experience, a very large portion of them actually want the safe, sanitized version.
They want trauma with sparkles.
They want darkness that is declarative, not felt.
They want pain that is metaphorical, not visceral, pain that looks pretty in an edit.
They want danger that never asks anything of them emotionally.
The moment you take the glitter away, the moment the trauma is not embellished but simply true, the moment the fear is not symbolic but something a real person could feel in their bones, they flinch.
They say it is too much, too real.
They back out, disappear. Poof. Gone back to glitter.
Because many people don't actually want dark stories, they want the aesthetic of darkness.
They want to feel edgy, not vulnerable.
They want wounds that heal instantly, not consequences that linger.
And from a writer’s perspective, you feel that difference immediately.
You can see exactly who is here for shiny metaphors and who is here for the raw, uncomfortable human emotional truth underneath.
The readers who stay are the ones who can handle a story that doesn't lie.
A story that refuses to soften and sugarcoat itself just to be easier to swallow.
Those readers are worth writing for.
The others were never really looking for the kind of story they claimed to want in the first place.
