Write For Your Reader, Not Yourself

I’ve seen the spark of insight light up the imaginations of many inexperienced authors when I’ve told them, “What your reader wants to read is not necessarily what you want to say.”

I’m all for encouraging writers to have fun.  Writing is supposed to be fun – you can’t access your innate creativity if you’re bored, let’s face it.  That doesn’t mean, though, that the message of your book should be pure self-indulgence.  Do you have a message to put across?  Do you want your reader to understand it, accept it and run with it? 

 If you want to sell lots of copies of your book then that’s a “yes”.  Find the fun in writing for your reader – not for yourself.  It’s your job to work out which parts of what you want to say matter to your reader.  Then, add anything that matters to your reader that you hadn’t considered important.  Throw them into the mix and have fun turning them into what your reader wants to read. 

DON’T SWAMP YOUR READER WITH RESEARCH

There’s no point in adding every factoid you’ve researched to one article.  What are you trying to prove by giving away all your secrets at once?  That you’re bursting with knowledge?  Nobody’s impressed by that.  That you’ve spent hundreds of hours and a lifetime of passion dedicated to researching the topic?  Ditto. 

None of your research time needs go to waste, though.  Commit to use it in small, bite-sized titbits of information that you can release into the world one at a time.  The way your reader would like to digest it.

GET INTIMATE WITH YOUR READER

You are talking one to one with your reader.  Of course, you’re hoping for a readership of millions … but always approach your writing as though you’re speaking to just one person.  A very special person, at that.  Somebody you can address as easily as you could your best friend, your sibling – confident that your informal approach will be welcomed because you’re clearly ‘on side’. 

If your reader truly feels that you’re there to improve Life for him in some way, he’ll read everything you offer him. 

WRITE THE WAY PEOPLE NORMALLY TALK

Choose a conversational tone with your narrative.  Yes, even if you’re a CEO, a top solicitor or super-brainy software developer.  In my experience, people in these positions who want to publish white papers and books find it the most difficult to cut out the jargon and lofty language.  They end up using a haughty tone - a poor creative choice that does nothing to warm the reader to the writer. 

I recall pointing this out to the CEO of a software development company who asked me to ghostwrite articles for him.  He didn’t take kindly to the idea of his having to step off his pedestal.

“What do YOU know?”, he sneered, while two of his developer cohorts shuffled and giggled behind him like a couple of bullies in a 1950s comic strip.  “You’re not in this industry.  This is our language.  Our competitors would expect us to sound like the experts they know we are.”

I guessed that they didn’t really want a ghostwriter to write for their target market:  what they wanted was respect their competitors.  They ended up with neither. 

If you want to intimidate your reader with a haughty approach and an arsenal of vocabulary that nobody understands except you, go ahead and write that way.  There may be some satisfaction to be gained in its writing, but as far as its impact is concerned, of course, it’s a total waste of time and money.

Rather, economise with your words and write the way people talk.  Great content manages to include all the product or service information you want to deliver in a natural way, within the context of a strong central theme or storyline. 

A nifty trick to check if your voice is natural is to read the piece out loud; you can record it and play it back to yourself.  If you sound like you’re chatting to a friend, you’ve nailed it.  If it doesn’t, go back and revise the last draft.  Highlight the phrases that include jargon, stilted phrasing, long sentences and lofty language and change them.  

Remember, what you want to write is not necessarily what your reader needs or wants to read.  All he has to do is shut the book.  Find out more about how you can put your message across in a way that your reader wants to absorb it – get in touch.  Your writing can be fun AND valuable all at once.

Jo Collie