Who is your Audience?

MUSE

August's column for The Greater Canton Writers’ Guild Newsletter

          Writers write for many reasons, all of them valid.  And those writings – what we produce – and the words we use to express our thoughts and ideas -are a measure of ourselves.  They tell the world who we are and what lies within our minds and hearts. 

          Many times the act of writing is therapeutic: it exorcises the demons that plague us. That’s personal. That’s also between the writer and his therapist.  There’s’ something called too much information that your readers don’t need to know.

          When we write for publication, it is necessary to connect with your readers and in order to do that, we need to know who our targeted audience is. Shared experiences and common interests are a way to do this.  When you write about nature, you would want to share it with someone who loves the outdoors – and you would submit it to a nature magazine.

          A few years ago I attended a poetry writing workshop taught by Jeff Gundy. One of the women in the class asked him if she was writing for herself, why would she need to observe form, punctuation and the like since it would seem that “anything goes”.  His response was perfect.  He said that “the minute you give your work to someone to look at, asking for their time and opinion, you are immediately then bound by the rules of grammar and composition.”  Meaning that if you write for yourself (or therapy), chances are you should probably keep it to yourself. But go ahead and rant on paper. Then burn it – or in my case, hit delete.

          Writers face rejection enough without submitting their work to the wrong audience. Knowing our audience when we submit (and I’m not talking about writing for the judges) makes a big difference in whether our writing is accepted or rejected.