Writing For

Hannah Hon

May 3

In most of my writing I am not writing to or for a specific audience. I am just writing for myself, whatever I want to write, whenever I feel led to write it. It's personal expression, emotional processing, things that I feel need to be written or said or read. You all know this by now, but I can't help but write. I'm a writer, so that's what I do.

However, I've been thinking that if I want to write a book someday (And you all know this is something I've mentioned here and there in my posts) then I need to practice writing for an audience. Or to a specific group of people.

Do I have to write to, or for, an audience to write a book? My creative, free-expression self is like, 'Heck no'. No, no, I don't. I can just write what I want and people can take what they want from it. I mean, right? That's how it goes, yes?

I have this gut feeling though that in the 'real world', the world of real live book editors, publishers, authors and people who write for a living, that is not the case. You have to be specific. You have to be intentional. You have to write for someone.

The marketing team at your chosen publishing house (Or do they chose you?) needs to know how to market your book to the right audience. Maybe it all goes back to marketing. After all, you want your words to be read, right? You don't want to write this great and awesome novel and no one reads it. And you don't want to write a book for children and then somehow market it to adults.

And although the Number One rule of writing may be to actually sit down and write something (And the Number Two rule? Read this post for an idea), it could arguably be said that after Rule Number One comes, 'Consider your audience, consider your audience. Consider. Your. Audience.'

Don't all good writers (Professional and otherwise) and published authors consider who they're writing to...maybe even before Rule Number One?

Or is it, 'What do I want to write about?'

Then, 'Who's my audience?'

Then, 'Create an Outline or Storyboard'

(So maybe Rule Number Two is actually Rule Number Three? Or maybe all the 'rules' are all mixed up and it all matters, despite what order they're in)

I've been thinking of all this lately, this writing for. I don't think it will change my blog at all, that's not the point of this blog (It is first and foremost whatever I feel like writing about), but on the sidelines I want to start praticing writing for an audience with a specific theme in mind, ie, a book. Whether or not that means said book (At this point a mythical book because it doesn't exist...yet) will actually be published, but that shouldn't stop me from writing, trying or practicing.

For you, do you write for someone? Or do you write for yourself? What are your thoughts on this topic? I would really love to know what you think! Please feel free to leave a comment. Peace.