by Julie Lavender @JLavenderWrites
“Write for an audience of one.”
You may have heard these instructions at a conference or read it in your favorite writers magazine.
In other words, don’t try to write for the masses or you could lose your focus. Picturing that one reader as you write a story or article tends to give our writing a more personal touch. It helps the reader feel like we’re talking specifically to them.
Years ago, in an interview about his book Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck said, “Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.”
