When it comes to readers' expectations, there seem to be three kinds of writers: those who write the story they would love to read and hope the reader feels the same way; those who write according to the reader's expectation; and those who do a bit of both. Eventually, every storyteller writes a story with an audience in mind, whether an audience of one or more. And if you want some degree of commercial success for your story, you need to consider the expectations of a wider audience.

Why Consider Your Reader?

Many book reviews come with a recommendation, and when you are crafting your story, you need to answer the question; to who would I recommend it? This question is crucial and affects the marketability of your story. Of course, you want it to have an international appeal to every soul under the sun, but the truth is no such story exists. Even popular mainstream stories became prominent because they first appealed to their specific audience; yours won't be any different, hence the need to know and understand your specific, desired audience.

You Need to Define your Genre/Subgenre

The first step to identifying your reader is to define your genre. Your book needs a category that readers are familiar with, so they would know what to expect. What makes a successful story is the combination of novelty and familiarity; a writer takes a typical story and tells it uniquely. 

Just as a popular song with a unique sound, at its core it still has familiar chords, but with a creative combination that creates a distinct melody. The same should apply to your story; you need to give your readers something familiar but with your unique spin. In your story, the plot will still have a lead, an objective, a confrontation, and a knockout. Your characters would still have a backstory, a personality, a mission, and a motivation. And your story would need to adhere to the elements necessary for its particular genre. 

Every story can belong to many secondary genres, but it always has a primary genre and subgenre. And you need to understand those and know what elements are unique to them if you want to write a story that connects to fans of such genres and meets their expectations.

Study Classic and Prominent Examples

The surest way to understand the basic structure and elements of your story's genre and subgenre is to read popular stories in the same category. If you want to write a mystery, you should consider studying Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes. If yours belongs to the horror genre, you should compile a reading list of Stephen King's novels. If you want to create a fantasy, you can consider The Chronicles of Narnia Series.

The secret to writing great stories is by studying great stories and comprehending what key elements make them remarkable. You need to understand how they create the first paragraph, the first chapter, the main character, the setting, the conflict, the antagonist, and so on. When you perfectly understand these things, you can now give them your unique spin and create a masterpiece.

Answer the Narrative Question and Let Everything be about the Question.

Readers follow your main character for one reason and one reason only: there is a narrative question (or questions) that his story answers, and they want to know what the answer is. Hence, your story should stick to the narrative question. Every description, dialogue, character, and action should be relevant to answering this question. Extraneous prose and unnecessary details only drag your story and test the patience of your readers. 

Your narration should adhere to the principle of Chekhov’s gun; everything mentioned in your story must serve a purpose. According to Chekhov, “Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”