(90 sec read.) Today’s 90-second writing tip can help you focus your voice, find more specificity, and break out of overwhelm. Since you can do anything you want in creative writing, it’s easy to wander around and get lost. If you’d like a simple compass that keeps your pen moving in a coherent direction, try writing for one specific person.
Today’s 90-Second Writing Tip: Audience of One
Instead of “writing” try to write like your work is meant to be read by ONE ACTUAL PERSON. Pick someone specific, and write like they’ll read it. Your best friend. Your crush. An author you admire. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Even if they never read it, this can REALLY help.
Writing gets easier when you know who it’s for. You probably speak differently to your dog and to your boss. You’ll write differently for different people, too.
Picking a specific listener helps you know what to say. And how to say it. And, maybe most importantly, it helps you know what to leave out.
The joy (and horror) of writing is the UNBOUNDED FREEDOM. On the page, you can do anything you want. This can make it hard to know what to do.
One way to narrow your options so that it’s easier to make confident writing choices is to try and please the tastes of a specific audience.
Some folks do this by relying on tropes (like “fantasy readers love it when the grumpy warrior turns out to have a heart of gold”) or genre conventions (like “romance readers demand a happy ending.”) Others do it by writing only to please themselves. They try to forget about the readers at all and only cater to their own tastes. That works for some authors but I don’t like to do it, because I think the writer-reader relationship is beautiful and inspiring. I wouldn’t want to be without it. Sure, I could talk to myself on paper. I’d rather talk to someone else.
I prefer the approach of writing for one specific real person. Not a “type” of person (sci-fi fans, gamers, millenials, men, women, etc.) I like talking to someone specific on the page. The same way I’d write a letter or a postcard to someone in particular.
When I see my work as less like “writing a work of art” and more like writing a letter or a postcard to somebody, it inspires me to be joyful and clear.
Writing can feel lonely or abstract; scrawling glyphs and runes on a page, with the vague hope that a stranger might be moved by them at an unspecified later date in a room you’ll never see. But, writing isn’t abstract or “for the muse” or “for the world” or “for the void.” It’s a bid for human-to-human communication, just like a phone call to a best friend or a risky but bold text message to your crush.
If you’re struggling to stay motivated with your writing habit, or you feel overwhelmed about how to draft or shape or edit your work, see if writing for one person helps.
(Wanna try it but having trouble getting started? Try 55 Ways to Stop Procrastination.)
xo, megan
Or just go home to the blog.
These (hopefully) really quite helpful creative writing tips offer what I’ve learned as an award-winning author who writes a million words a year, and what I’ve learned about supporting others as a private writing coach.
There’s no one way to write. There’s only your way. I hope some of my tactics and ideas can help you find it.
Yup, I’m a writing coach.
I work with folks at all levels of experience and all levels of income. My writers range from unhoused teens living on the streets to C-suite executives who want to up-level their communication. If you want a private coaching session but can’t afford it, email megan@howtowritesomething.com and ask for scholarship info.
curious/confused?: what does a writing coach do (and not do)
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