Writing [Rant] Don't Insult your Readers.

[StoneInky]

Don't Insult your Readers.
A minor Rant.

"You don't need to put neon signs around your plot points.
Readers aren't as dumb as you think."
-- Mojo Castle Books, Editor in Chief --

View attachment 38885​

Just say No to: PLOT WAFFLING!​

Plot Waffling is a form of Author Intrusion that appears when the author is convinced that their Readers are too stupid, or too immature to comprehend what's going on in the story without assistance.

For example, when a character keeps "noticing" what seems to be something relatively unimportant that adds nothing to the current scene.

✧ "Wow, that's interesting. Why is that there?"
✧ "I wonder who that is, even though I'm not interested in them, really."

Translation: "NOTICE THIS NOW! Hell, write this shit down!"

View attachment 38886​

This form of Plot Waffling is even worse, and is commonly mistaken by the Author as Foreshadowing:

✧ Little did they know, but this would be the last time...
✧ If only they knew that...
✧ Don’t worry about it. You’ll know the truth soon enough.
✧ Anyway, I’m getting ahead of my story. Little Ozzie and Terrible Chester do not enter the picture until after the cow explodes.

This shit is not Foreshadowing! This is fairytale Narration shit, and it does not belong in books or stories meant for anyone older than Twelve! It definitely doesn't belong in books or stories meant for Adults.

Ahem...

Plot Waffling, and Narration mainly appear in fairytales, published kiddie books, and story books intended for middle-school children and younger. Readers that actually need help comprehending what they're reading. For example, the very first Harry Potter book; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, written specifically for eleven-year-olds and younger, had it all over the opening chapter.

When this shit happens in published novels meant for Adults, it's usually accidental.

The culprit being the Author's publishing house Editor who didn't recognize that it should have been red-lined and removed. Either the Editor was very new at the job, and wasn't fully trained yet, or the Editor recently came from the Children's Books, or Young Adult department where this shit is considered acceptable for publication -- because their Readers are children.

In short, these Editors had yet to learn that this shit Should Not be in books read by Adults, and is supposed to be Removed with Extreme Prejudice.

If this shit appears in a novel written by a top named Author, that Author likely has a multi-billion dollar contract that states that they don't want an Editor, and no matter what they write, or how badly they write it, it will be Published. Such as: Nora Roberts, Stephen King, Laurell K Hamilton, Anne Rice...

So! If you're not writing a kid's book, and you're not a top named author with a contract that says you can skip the Editor...?

Shut up, and go edit that shit out of your work.

View attachment 38887​

Web Stories & Fan-fiction​

On Web Story and Fan-fiction sites, Plot Waffling and Narration show up for three main reasons.

Reason 1:
-- The Author hasn't read nearly enough books written for Adults to realize that Plot Waffling and Fairytale Narration is only acceptable in stories meant for Children.

Reason 2:
-- The Author has deliberately written a story in the Manga/Lite Novel style because they thought it would be easier to write, and popular.

It is plainly obvious that these Authors gorged on a high concentration of fairytales, middle-school story books, translated Manga and Manhua, translated Lite Novels, and Young Adult novels. These stories are well-known for having very simplistic wish-fulfillment plots, cliché wish-fulfillment characters, no romance or relationship development, very little description, and a limited vocabulary -- because they are meant for kids under thirteen with difficulty in Reading Comprehension.

None of which appeals to most Adult Readers.

Seriously, No Adult enjoys reading a story that's been Dumbed Down for Kiddy Comprehension -- especially if that story contains Adult Content!

Adult Readers generally prefer stories they can't guess the ending to by the fourth chapter, flawed complex characters dealing with personal issues, realistic relationships even if the adult scenes happen behind closed doors, rich and detailed descriptions that allow the Reader to clearly visualize the story's world, and a college-level vocabulary to support the full breadth of the story.

~~ ?~~​

-- Note: There are Adults out there that prefer reading simplistic adventure books meant for teens and younger. However, they are vastly out-numbered by the rest of us Adults looking for something good to read.

Don't believe me?
-- Walk into any bookstore and note the size of the Adult Sci-Fi/Fantasy section verses the Young Adult Sci-Fi/Fantasy section in the Kids Books area. Then note the massive size of the Romance section. Lastly, go look at the Manga and Lite Novel section. It's the smallest of all.

"But the stories on all the Web Story sites are all Lite Novels:
Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, or written that way!"​

Well, of course. The only free stories easily available on the internet are books translated by amateurs, or written by amateurs who read all those translations then tried to write their own. What did you expect? Professionally written novels? Del-Rey, the largest publisher of Sci-Fi and Fantasy does not allow any of their published books to be posted anywhere for free, nor does any other US publisher. Even the authors are limited to posting no more than four chapters on their own sites.

Professional authors write to get paid for their work. While eBook sites can compete with publishing houses for decent authors, pay-to-read Web Novel sites cannot. Writing a chapter a day, (1000 words,) is far too much pressure for far too little pay. Free story sites aren't even a consideration.

~~ ?~~
​

So...! How does an Adult tell an Author to stop treating their Readers like children? This is easily done with an Email to the Author, or a post in their Comments section:

Dear Author,​

-- Please stop dumbing down the story. I am a working, tax-paying, Adult with an Adult's level of reading comprehension and the vocabulary to go with it. I am Not an immature brat who hasn't graduated high school yet. Nor am I an idiot. I don't need pointers, hints, or asides to help me understand what's going on. I am fully capable of following context clues to figure things out for myself, thank-you.​

Reason 3:
-- The Author has been abused in the Comments section by far too many Immature, and likely Under-aged Readers.

In my opinion...!
-- Too many story sites that allow Adult Content also allow Thirteen-Year-Olds Membership, when the minimum age for membership should be Sixteen, or better yet: Eighteen.

Not that age-restriction on memberships actually matter.

It's all too easy for an under-aged brat to LIE about their age and sneak in to a site they have no business viewing, and gaining access to content they are not legally old enough, and certainly not mature enough, to be seeing. Sadly, there's not a whole lot the site admins can do about it. Even if a brat is caught and thrown out, they can just create a new ID and sneak right back in.

To make matters worse, not all Immature Readers are under-aged.

However, Immature Readers of all ages have two major flaws in common, that makes them very easy to identify:

Impatience and the constant need for Attention.
​

View attachment 38903

Immaturity & Author Abuse​

On fan-fiction and web novel sites, Immature Readers are easily spotted by their nasty habit of battering Authors for spoilers in the Comments section. These spoiler questions tend to appear in the early chapters as puppy-eyed begging, or snotty demands for characters' motives, romantic interests, when sex scenes will happen, and how the story is going to end. Things the story itself will answer in due time.

Don't be fooled. Both the begging and the demands are signs that you're dealing with an immature, impatient, attention-seeking Brat.

In addition to spoiler-begging, these brats also tend to post half a dozen times on the same chapter by adding snippy, snotty, or outright nasty comments on other people's comment posts.

These brat posts are especially prevalent when the Author has not set their comments to "Members Only", "No Anonymous Guest Posts", and "Approve before Posting".

All too often, instead of telling these immature brats: "Go read the Chapter again, idiot," or "You'll know when it happens," or just plain IGNORING them, the abused Authors Give-In to the brats' demands and deliver on those spoilers in their comments. AKA: Feeding the Trolls. This is especially virulent when the author is desperate to be seen as Nice, and Friendly.

Rather than stop those brats from posting, it backfires spectacularly and encourages the little shits to Do It More. After all, they've been getting loads of attention this way. Why should they stop?

Sometimes a desperate Author will start adding explanations in their Author Notes, specifically for those Brat Readers that repeatedly post that they did not get it. Worst of all is when the Author starts adding Plot Waffling to the story to make Story Comprehension easier for those same Brat Readers.

In the meantime, what they're actually doing is Ruining the Story for the rest of their reading audience!

Stop that!

So how do you deal with
Immature Bratty Troll Readers?

View attachment 38890​

Never accept Anonymous Guest posts, and if the brats get through anyway, ignore them. Don't Answer their Posts.

To get rid of a Troll, you have to
Starve it of Attention.
There is No Other Way. ​

The truth is, these immature troll brats are not looking for answers, they're looking for ATTENTION from the closest famous person they can get to talk to them: the Author of the story they're reading.

If you must answer them, just politely tell them: "I don't want to give away all the surprises," or "The answers are in the story," or "Just wait and see!" Then disengage and don't add any more -- especially if they're provoking you!

Report them if you can. If not, your only recourse to utterly ignore them, no matter how nasty they get.

I agree on the immature reader thing. Buttt I don't think authors should ignore em. If they want to appeal to a broader audience, authors should take this as a sign, and try to keep the main plotline simpler (story about MC who needs to destory ring, dude who needs to fight villain, who dude needs to get home, etc) and then dig them really deep for extra complexity and side plots and backgrounds to why things are happening.

Less experienced readers would see just the plainly spelled out surface level stuff, skip the complex stuff, but enjoy the novel anyway. Readers interested in deep plot would be able to dive deep into complexity and get what they want too.

If even the main plotline is complex and ambiguous, you are writing for a more limited audience. Which isn't a bad thing, but you have to be aware some people will dislike your novel. That may result in annoyed comments, especially if you do not market said novel properly.

 

[MiaTheDuckling]

While I agree with the main point about plot waffling in adult novels, I think you may be forgetting that a lot of readers on sites like these are going to be younger, and that audience bias is something that any writer may want to consider.

Well, kids don't generally buy books. Their parents do because kids normally don't have any income.

Most kids that become die-hard readers start out as library addicts. It's only during high school --and their first job-- that they start buying their own books. That's after scraping the internet for any half-way decent story.

The reason for this is something you've already mentioned, kids don't buy their own books and hence will be drawn to websites where they can read for free.

I think it's ultimately the author's choice whether to appeal to the target audience that is available, and naturally the stories that do will find success on these sites.

 

[Hoshino]

Or don't insult anyone.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

I agree on the immature reader thing. Buttt I don't think authors should ignore em.

That's dangerous talk right there. Those brats are Trolls. The more you pay attention to them, the worse they get. Not only to the author they're pestering, but to everyone else on that author's comment list.

If they want to appeal to a broader audience, authors should take this as a sign, and try to keep the main plotline simpler ... and then dig them really deep for extra complexity and side plots and backgrounds to why things are happening.

Sure, if you don't mind writing for Children.

I prefer writing for Adults, myself. It's more satisfying to write, and Pays better.

Less experienced readers would see just the plainly spelled out surface level stuff, skip the complex stuff, but enjoy the novel anyway. Readers interested in deep plot would be able to dive deep into complexity and get what they want too.

This should be true of any well written story. Especially those written for Adults.

If even the main plotline is complex and ambiguous, you are writing for a more limited audience.

There are those who genuinely enjoy writing in a limited niche genre, but for those of us capable of writing more than that? Why should we hold ourselves back to write for a such a limited audience?

...you have to be aware some people will dislike your novel.

LOL! Darlin', there is nothing in existence that Everyone likes. That's just a fact of life! You can't please everyone, so you should please Yourself!

That may result in annoyed comments,

There is no law that says an author HAS to respond to, or even read, their comments.

...especially if you do not market said novel properly.

The truly best way to market a story, is to write a damned good one. The readers will find it, and word will get around from there.

I posted 18 short stories on a very niche story post site, and two different publishers found me. I had no idea they even knew the site existed! I've been selling books ever since.

 

[Forcalor]

Personally I have a problem with gauging emotional investment or maturity of my potential reader, so I guess this topic is relevant to me. Thank you for it

 

[Arkus86]

My readers would definitely argue that point. While I was writing my Sci-Fi series they were giving me lectures on space travel and quantum physics. Not a Joke! Then again, I'm coming from a completely different demographic. I'm an Erotic Romance author. (Women's Adult Pulp Fiction.) My readers expect me to deliver on a strong plot with solid research to back it up, in addition to having highly detailed smut scenes.

I would point out your readers are a tiny fraction of the total reader base, no matter how popular you are. You might be using platforms where the worse readers don't dwell as much, you might have done something right that discourages them, or maybe you just lucked out, but the average reader is not particularly smart. Certainly not smart enough to talk about quantum physics from any position of authority, though some of them might think otherwise.

But it's not like I have hard data to back my impression either.

 

[Menace]

I think there's a misconception about how different the preferences of adults and YA adults differ. It's pretty likely that someone reading some YA fiction will keep reading it further into adulthood. Heck it's possible to enjoy both. I've read both "serious literature" and translations of japanese light novels.

And let's be real most people don't come to a site like this hoping to find the next Steven King.

You talk about the size of bookshelves in stores but a lot of those "aimed at adults" don't really have the deep writing you talk about. Trashy romances and trashy crime series ARE popular, even though most of those have moved to other media.

Personally i think as long as a work is consistent on how it treats the issues you mentioned that's enough.

 

[AngryCat]

Don't insult your readers

Indeed… Beat them up if possible!

 

[OokamiKasumi]

Or don't insult anyone.

Like that's humanly possible?
-- No matter what you do, or don't do, or say, or don't say, someone will be upset about it.

While I agree with the main point about plot waffling in adult novels...

Thank you.

I think you may be forgetting that a lot of readers on sites like these are going to be younger, and that audience bias is something that any writer may want to consider.

Just because the site's reading audience currently tends to be young (YA), does not mean that the site's reading audience will remain that way.

At the moment, the majority of the stories posted on this site appeal to a Young Adults; late middle school, early high-school age level. Mainly because it's Free, but mostly because it's one of the few sites that allows adult content, that they don't have to be Over 18 to get into.

All it would take to change the site's demographic would be:

1: Membership Age strictly Over 18,​

2: Posting stories designed to appeal to Adults.​

-- For example: Pulp Fiction, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Fantasy... any genre that isn't Lite.​

I do not know why this site even bothers with the YA reading audience, especially if the site wants to generate revenue. Kids don't have money to spend. Adults do.

...kids don't buy their own books and hence will be drawn to websites where they can read for free.

Correct. However, this site in particular is Not set up to be a Kids' site. If it was, it wouldn't allow adult content -- and I wouldn't be here.

I think it's ultimately the author's choice whether to appeal to the target audience that is available,

Well, of course.
-- However it IS possible to attract an additional target audience. However, everyone seems pleased with attracting the YA readers.

This is Not a Good Thing.
-- If the majority of the writers are concentrating on drawing in only Readers that are under 18, then there is No Need to Allow R -18 stories, just like Royal Road. Sooner or later the site owner will Make that Decision and one more site will lose it's R-18 privileges because there will be no need for it.

To keep being able to post R-18 stories, we need to draw in more Adult Readers.

Personally I have a problem with gauging emotional investment or maturity of my potential reader, so I guess this topic is relevant to me. Thank you for it

There's an easy way to handle that.
-- Write what You want to read. Write that one story that you can't find anywhere that you desperately want to read. Write the story so that it not only engages your interest, but everyone like you who are also looking for that type of story too.

 

[Menace]

This is Not a Good Thing.
-- If the majority of the writers are concentrating on drawing in only Readers that are under 18, then there is No Need to Allow R -18 stories, just like Royal Road. Sooner or later the site owner will Make that Decision and one more site will lose it's R-18 privileges because there will be no need for it.

To keep being able to post R-18 stories, we need to draw in more Adult Readers.

I highly doubt that would happen. Sorting stories by popularity shows that there's quite a lot R - rated stuff among the things people read on the site. So unless the owner would want to intentionally limit traffic it would shooting themselves in the foot.

Never mind actually trying to enforce the ban.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

I would point out your readers are a tiny fraction of the total reader base, no matter how popular you are.

ROFLMAO!
-- Erotic Romance readers may be "a tiny fraction of the total reader base," on This site, but that's just this site alone.

My readers have been paying my rent since 1996!

You might be using platforms where the worse readers don't dwell as much, you might have done something right that discourages them, or maybe you just lucked out...

My fans may be a little on the rabid side...
-- They tend to eat my trolls, and my plagiarists.

My books are protected by a publishing house and their lawyers. The sites they're available on are bookstores, and shopping sites. Not posting sites for stories.

The platforms where I post my fan-fic stories have very strict controls on who can post comments, and who can't. There's no point in posting on a site that doesn't have such basic protections for the author.

There's a reason I have yet to post any fiction on this site:
-- Too many Under-Aged Trolls are on running rampant on this site.

but the average reader is not particularly smart. Certainly not smart enough to talk about quantum physics from any position of authority, though some of them might think otherwise.

But it's not like I have hard data to back my impression either.

If you're only counting the Loudest Mouths among the readers on this site alone, then yeah, I can see a lot of writers thinking that the bulk of the readers aren't particularly bright. Especially when the most active and loud readers are apparently still in middle school.

I am not. I am counting all the readers on other sites too. The reading audience is so much bigger than just this site and RR.

I think there's a misconception about how different the preferences of adults and [Young Adults] differ.

If you're not over 30, you're not an Adult yet. <-- My personal bias.
-- There is a vast difference between an Adult who has graduated college, has their own apartment, and holds a full-time job, verses a high school kid with a part-time job who's still living at home with Mom.

Experience is the main reason behind a preference for stories that are simple and wish-fulfillment, verses stories that echo the more complicated problems that Adults tend to face.

Example: very, very simplified.

Kid problems:
-- Home: parents, siblings, pets, friends.
-- Bills: phone, wifi, gaming, snacks, clothes, accessories,
-- School: teachers, friends, classmates, studying, group projects, crushes, rumors, bullies, exams, prom, extracurricular activities/athletics,
-- Job: scheduling time to hang out with friends, annoying boss, annoying coworkers, annoying customers. Finding a new job after rage-quitting.
-- Recreation: drugs, alcohol, lovers, porn, concerts, gaming, movies,

Adult problems:
-- Home: finding an affordable place, parking issues, indifferent apartment manager, maintenance issues, roommate(s), spouse and/or lover(s), pregnancy, children, pets, neighbors.
-- Bills: rent or mortgage, student loan payments, car payments, car & health insurance, phone, wifi, groceries, power/electric, water, trash collection, gas, furniture/appliance rentals, car maintenance & repairs, traffic tickets, travel expenses: hotels, restaurants, car rental.
-- College: applying to attend, applying for student loans, attending entrance exams, buying books, scheduling time to hang out with friends, professors, the dean, dorm assignment, dorm manager, dorm mates, fraternities/sororities, classmates, lovers, rumors, research, projects, thesis writing, handing in papers on time, group projects, club activities,
-- Job: buying decent clothes or a suit, months of job interviews, commuting, classes for training, annoying boss, annoying coworkers, annoying customers, office rumors, department meetings, unpaid overtime, company dinners/banquets, drinking with clients, promotion dinners, long distance travel for work, job transfers to distant offices -- all of which you need to put up with to keep the job you took months to find.
-- Recreation: Drugs, alcohol, porn, gaming, prostitutes, long distance travel: for vacations, to visit family, friends, lover(s),

Keep in mind, this is very, very simplified.

It's pretty likely that someone reading some YA fiction will keep reading it further into adulthood. Heck it's possible to enjoy both. I've read both "serious literature" and translations of japanese light novels.

Of course. No argument there.

It's not a matter of one or the other -- Adults vs Young Adults.
-- It's a matter of broadening the readership to Include Both -- before we lose all chance of keeping adult readers and adult content, on the site.

And let's be real most people don't come to a site like this hoping to find the next Steven King.

True, but as a reader myself, I was hoping to find more than just Children's Stories and poorly written erotica.

You talk about the size of bookshelves in stores but a lot of those "aimed at adults" don't really have the deep writing you talk about.

The Fantasy and Sci-Fi books in bookstores may not be masterpieces of literature, though quite a few do have HUGO awards to that affect... However, they have far more emotional depth, a broader range of characters, and better plotting than imported and translated lite novels intended for school kids.

Trashy romances and trashy crime series ARE popular...

Of course they are. The reading audience can't get enough of them, and are more than willing to shell out the cash to have them.

Smut Sells, and Good Smut can pay the rent.

even though most of those have moved to other media.

Nope. Trashy Romances and Smutty Pulp Fiction are still being sold by publishers, both traditional publisher and the ePubs. That's how I'm selling mine!

Personally i think as long as a work is consistent on how it treats the issues you mentioned that's enough.

Good for you. Keep up the good work.

Don't insult your readers --
-- Indeed… Beat them up if possible!

AGREED!

I highly doubt that would happen. Sorting stories by popularity shows that there's quite a lot R - rated stuff among the things people read on the site. So unless the owner would want to intentionally limit traffic it would shooting themselves in the foot.

It happened to DeviantArts.
-- DA stopped allowing Adult Content to allow 13+ memberships. This was specifically to cater to the school-age, college-age art crowd. I was there at the time.
-- The bulk of their adult core memberships dropped the site like a burning log.

This happened to another site too, but that site went belly-up only a few months after changing from 18+ only to 13+ and no adult content.

Never mind actually trying to enforce the ban.

It Can be done.
-- It's as easy as shutting down the whole site for a few days and purging all 18+ content, with silent notifications attached to all known adult content posters, set to alert the admin if they try to post anything with adult content.

Also, tattletales are a thing.
-- You are aware that there's a Report link on every comment box, right?

Tattle-tales are everywhere, and most of them carry grudges.

 

[Forcalor]

There's an easy way to handle that.
-- Write what You want to read. Write that one story that you can't find anywhere that you desperately want to read. Write the story so that it not only engages your interest, but everyone like you who are also looking for that type of story too.

Well, I am doing that. I mostly hanged around here to vocalize my appreciation for this topic, but thank you for the advice

 

[OokamiKasumi]

Well, I am doing that.

Excellent!
-- Believe it or not, writing the stories I wanted to read, but couldn't find was how I gathered a very large reading audience -- then was discovered by two publishers.

I mostly hanged around here to vocalize my appreciation for this topic, but thank you for the advice

Thank you for your support, and I'm glad I could help.

 

[OokamiOkuri]

Too many Under-Aged Trolls are on running rampant on this site.

And the rest are adult Trolls. They will even make videos about you!

 

[Menace]

It happened to DeviantArts.
-- DA stopped allowing Adult Content to allow 13+ memberships. This was specifically to cater to the school-age, college-age art crowd. I was there at the time.
-- The bulk of their adult core memberships dropped the site like a burning log.

This happened to another site too, but that site went belly-up only a few months after changing from 18+ only to 13+ and no adult content.

There is a lot of adult content on deviantart right now.

 

[OokamiKasumi]

There is a lot of adult content on deviantart right now.

There are "artistic nudes" on DeviantArt, and that's all there is for Adult Content. Adult stories with 18+ content is ganked off the site within minutes, so is any image with people engaging in any form of 18+ activities.

I go elsewhere to post my adult images.

 

[SternenklarenRitter]

LOL! Darlin', there is nothing in existence that Everyone likes.

There must be a better way to phrase this. Please do not laugh at the authors here.

ROFLMAO!
-- Erotic Romance readers may be "a tiny fraction of the total reader base," on This site, but that's just this site alone.

My readers have been paying my rent since 1996!

I don't doubt you genuinely want to help authors here by sharing your expertise, but you are being a little heavy handed about it. People are not going to be receptive to your advice if you keep laughing at them.

If you're not over 30, you're not an Adult yet. <-- My personal bias.

I suspect you may be misidentifying cultural changes between generations for immaturity. The new generation is not suddenly a lot dumber than yours is. But they do have different language. And the world is changing at an incredible rate right now. Maybe the way Zoomers are interacting with each other is unfamiliar to you, but that doesn't make it childish.

There is a vast difference between an Adult who has graduated college, has their own apartment, and holds a full-time job, verses a high school kid living at home with Mom who works part-time.

What is an adult to you? I was born in 1989 and have been a full time college student for over ten years now, with no career in sight. Am I an adult to you? I suppose I should be about 15 years your junior if you have paid your own rent since 1996. Does that make me a child? How many humans in your country of residence over the age of 20 do you consider to be adults? Also, adding "with Mom who works part-time" is inappropriate. Please be careful not to imply that children of working mothers are in any way inferior to their peers.

There's a reason I have yet to post any fiction on this site:

Quite bold of you to visit a community offering advice, without sharing any of your own work. Look, if you are selling a fight about whose methods are superior, there are a lot of people here who will buy. Earning a living with your work, you'd probably be right about it too. On the other hand, if you really do just want to help authors here with your experience, please be gentler about it.

 

[melchi]

Excellent!
-- Believe it or not, writing the stories I wanted to read, but couldn't find was how I gathered a very large reading audience -- then was discovered by two publishers.

Isn't this the main reason to start writing? I started my novel because I was looking for something that was close to the popular stuff but different in a big way. However, there were maybe 2 authors that wrote said genre in a way that I found interesting.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I started out as a library addict. By the time I got to high school, YA books bored me. I was already reading Heinlein, Stephen King, Michael Moorcock, and Ray Bradbury from the library, but I was buying Anne McCaffery, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Dianna Wynn Jones, Robin McKinley, Tim Powers, Robert Holdstock, William Gibson, Piers Anthony...

None of those authors write YA.

Heinlein did - he wrote "juvenile fiction" (The Star Beast), Young Adult fiction (The Time Tunnel and allegedly, Starship Troopers, the only book of his I never finished) and his more (sometimes FAR more) adult "Future History" stuff.
My reading was very eclectic from day one, probably stemming from being the son of a teacher turned librarian, and a teacher turned newspaperman (first reporter, then editor, then managing editor for several small papers ... and then turned librarian). The first stories I remember hearing were Lord of the Rings and "Ghosts and More Ghosts" by Robert Arthur. First poem I ever memorized was "The Jabberwocky." Though the first books I read - often after mom or dad had read them to me several times, were "Who's Mouse are You?", "Frog and Toad Together" and a few other silly little kids books.
First books I read for myself on my own were about dinosaurs (and my first-grade teacher once complained during a parent-teacher conference: "it's very annoying that he frequently corrects my pronunciation - and, even worse, the two times he was wrong, I was too") and I actually pretty much skipped YA until I was in my late 20s (though some of the novelizations I read, of classic horror movies or TV shows like Star Trek or Doctor Who came pretty close; I often wished I had encountered Lloyd Alexander either about four years before I did, when I would have been young enough to not a bit jaded and predict plot points, or about five years later when I would have been able to appreciate the craft behind the books, both in weaving mythological elements in, and just how he wrote in general)

 

[OokamiKasumi]

...writing the stories I wanted to read, but couldn't find...

Isn't this the main reason to start writing?

It was for me!

Heinlein did - he wrote "juvenile fiction" (The Star Beast), Young Adult fiction (The Time Tunnel and allegedly, Starship Troopers, the only book of his I never finished) and his more (sometimes FAR more) adult "Future History" stuff.

Ah, my bad. I missed those. They must have been in the YA section.
-- It's so nice to meet another library addict.