Who Are You Writing For?

Most peo­ple want to become writ­ers for them­selves. They enjoyed being intro­duced to a fic­tional world by J.K. Rowling or Robert Louis Stevenson or who­ever, a world full of adven­ture and plenty of oppor­tu­ni­ties to dis­tin­guish one­self. They thought it would be cool to have a job where you get to live in that world all the time.

Or they have an agenda. People are liv­ing the wrong way, they think, and so they're going to show them the right way to live by writ­ing a novel. If Sartre and Kierkegaard did it, why can't they?

Or they thought it would be cool to see their name in print, to have their work in the hands of peo­ple all over the country.

Man U's Biggest Fan

Man U's Biggest Fan. Photo by notsogoodphotography

It's fine to have a few self­ish motives to get you inter­ested in writ­ing. All writ­ers have a few of them. The prob­lem is what hap­pens when you start to write. You get fif­teen thou­sand words into your novel and all of a sud­den it's not so adven­tur­ous any­more, you can't fig­ure out how to com­mu­ni­cate your agenda, and you real­ize the book sucks so bad no one's going to buy it and see your name on the cover.

Who are you writ­ing for?

If you're writ­ing for your­self, you'll even­tu­ally give up. It has to be about some­thing big­ger than your­self. It has to about your com­mu­nity or your calling.

When you're killing your­self through the first draft, it's got to be about more than just you. Otherwise, why go through all the pain?

PRACTICE

Write some­thing for your biggest fan (it could be your mom, your son or daugh­ter, or your wife). Write a story for them, some­thing sim­ple you know they would get a kick out of.

What could be bet­ter than writ­ing things for the peo­ple who love you?

Take fif­teen min­utes or so to write. I hope you'll post it in the com­ments to share when you're done.

About the Author

Joe Bunting

Joe is a ghostwriter, editor, and an aspiring fiction author. He writes and edits books that change lives. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.