Who do you write for?

Glib:
Blogs!

Serious:
With gamers, I try to think of the type of fans who will be reading the story, and what they want to know about.

 

creamora*

 

Fixin' the glib.

With gamers, I try to think of one buddy in particular, and then write as if I'm telling him about the game I just saw and he missed. Then I throw in a few words that I know will send him running to the dictionary, which ain't hard in his case.

 

Is it really a bad answer to say I write for myself? Obviously, to be in our specialized area is to be someone who enjoys sports and writing in the first place. If I've written something I like ... am I wrong?

This is coming from someone who doesn't write that many gamers these days. Perhaps my POV fits with long-form.

 

You're the fourth person to say it. You have to write for yourself, otherwise you're going to hate what you do.

 

My mom, before she had the stroke.

An intelligent person but not a big sports fan. I had to always remember to keep it simple and keep it moving.

 

Actually, I think I said this in another thread. It's generic because it can mean so many things, but I write for ... the reader.

Writing for yourself is masturbation.

Writing for your boss is a waste of time because (at least in my case) he wouldn't know good writing if it clubbed him upside the head. Just read his columns and you'd know that.

Writing for APSE is all about either chasing tragedy features or trying to impress with your vocabulary and ending up sending readers to either the dictionary or thesaurus.

Just think of your reader as "everybody" who is interested in the thing you're covering and write for him/her/them. Based on what you're covering, you already should have a good idea who your readers are. Always write for them.

Keep it flowing with short sentences and simple, basic words that everyone understands.

When I was on the desk years ago, we had two the guys who were acknowledged as our best writers, hands down. And one thing I always took note of was that when you did a spellcheck of their stories, there were only one or two words that showed up in the list, and they were always names.

With everyone else, there always were long lists with derivatives of words and strange usages and a boatload of other contractions -- even though they were correct -- and other forms of words. With the best ones, there were no such things in the list. Sadly, one is now dead and one is retired. Truth is, sadly, we don't have any great writers at my paper any more.

 

I write for whoever's not gonna get me hit.

 

I write for 21. And the reader.

 

Let's see, I write for myself, my family (putting food on the table, baby!), the kids in the high school that I cover, the parents in the communities I cover and unfortunately the Cincinnati Reds (fucking season tickets).

 

Write for the readers, not yourself.
Bottom line - readers buy newspapers, writers don't.
If you want to write for yourself, write poetry.

 

I report for the readers.