Writing on Writing: The Audience is Listening
Just the same as nobody writes in a vacuum, nobody writes for a vacuum, either. Nobody writes for the sake of not being read. Nobody–at least no one that I know–writes something with the fervent hope that it’s overlooked or ignored.
So who are we writing for? Who’s your audience, your adoring public? Many people who create–whether for a living, or just on impulse–will tell you that they’re doing it primarily for themselves, and that’s a good starting point. After all, if what you’re doing doesn’t even interest you, why bother? Having said that, I think most people who write do it on some level in order to reach a wider audience; stuff that’s written primarily to please one’s self ends up reading as though it was written that way (ie. bloated, self-indulgent).
It’s possible to swerve to the other extreme as well. If you’re writing to please everyone–whether it’s a short story, a novel, or a song–the end result isn’t going to have much to recommend it beyond a very small niche of people who will be pleased no matter what you put in front of them. And even then it’s an exercise in futility, since someone (or a lot of someones) will be likely to find the blandness of it all pretty off-putting.
So there’s a balancing act involved here, but not that much of one when you get right down to it. Sure, write for yourself (you are, after all, the one person who’s guaranteed to read your work); but if you’re writing in order to be read, think of who might be the one doing the reading, and write accordingly. At that point, you’ll stand a better chance of writing something that someone besides you will actually enjoy reading.
So who’s your ideal reader/audience?
Tags: creativity, writing, writing prompts