Today’s Write Thought Wednesday
Whether you’re a professional writer, an enthusiastic amateur or a part-time Facebook grammar Nazi status updater, you might have heard this piece of advice before:
Write for one person.
But what does that mean?
To me it simply means don’t try and please everyone. If you try and write anything—whether a tweet or a novel—taking into account everyone on earth’s prejudices, hang-ups and personal biases you’d write NOTHING. Because anything you express is going to upset somebody. Defo.
Take last night as an example.
Last night there was an earthquake in Melbourne. But maybe not to someone from New Zealand? Compared to what those guys have been through in the past couple of years the earth moving in South-Eastern Oz would probably only qualify as a ‘tremor’.
So even in choosing one word to describe an event that literally shook my house I have a choice to make: to write for those who will ‘get it’ or be scared into pedantic ramblings by the thought of possibly offending some others.
It felt like an earthquake to me.
Earthquake in Warrandyte? At first I thought it was a huge rat in the roof! #shitman—
B. G. Mitchell (@B_G_Mitchell) June 19, 2012
On my Twitter feed, immediately after the MelbourneEarthquake (some reports have it at 5.2 on the Richter scale), I read funny posts about how everyone thought something weird had just happened—but ONLY to them. Tweet after tweet (and Facebook update after Facebook update) proved how tentative we can be in assuming our experience is another’s.
“Did anyone else just feel something strange?”
That kind of thing.
While some people think nothing of thinking (and writing) for others, people like me (maybe you too) don’t like rushing to conclusions about how another is experiencing this world. But often that’s exactly what we do when we write: we describe our experience for another hoping they have had a similar experience. We write as if we KNOW what another is feeling; as much as we write to share wild imaginings, we write to connect and share experience.
Idiot. First tweet about my first earthquake and I forget to add the # to earthquake. #tweetdisaster #earthquake #earthquakemelbourne Ahh.—
B. G. Mitchell (@B_G_Mitchell) June 19, 2012
Maybe not everyone would get my Tweet but I hoped at least one person would. Even if my ‘ideal reader’ (as Stephen King calls his perfect ‘one person’) was sitting next to me on the couch, surfing Facebook on our iPad.
And whether the one person I write for is my wife, my Kiwi friend in London (who Re-Tweeted that last tweet), some imagined hybrid of both (?), or me, maybe at least one of us will ‘get it’.
Hopefully a few more too.
PS. If you like this ‘Write Thought Wednesday’ post you might like A Writing Affirmation for Everyone and/or Brevity is the Soul of Twit.
Dan Harris
/ June 20, 2012Damn straight. It’s pretty much a rephrasing of ‘write what you want to read’, isn’t it? There are enough people in the world that if you write it good enough someone else will like it too :)
B.G. Mitchell
/ June 20, 2012A baby is being born right now who will one day read your first book, Dan. That’s cool, isn’t it!
Dan Harris
/ June 20, 2012How do you know? WHAT WITCHCRAFT IS THIS?!
B.G. Mitchell
/ June 20, 2012As you say, it’s a numbers game, innit. (And I’ve seen the flashy book cover for ‘Ascension Point’ on your blog!)
Dan Harris
/ June 20, 2012Haha, makes sense. Shiny shiny.
Elyse
/ June 20, 2012You are so write (pun intended) Ben. Great thought. Now I will post all the offensive pieces I have written and hidden …
B.G. Mitchell
/ June 20, 2012Thanks Elyse. Can’t wait for those! You might inspire me in turn. Maybe one day I’ll be brave/foolish enough to publish my ‘Christian Porn Channel’ post I’ve filed away for fear of upsetting some of my regular readers and/or anonymous censors.
Elyse
/ June 20, 2012I’ve always thougth that there should be a p[lace where we can post all that stuff. You know, the posts you can’t post because so-and-so will read it.
Maybe when I retire I can coordinate something like that!
B.G. Mitchell
/ June 20, 2012Count me in. By then I’ll probably have a few hundred ‘Mature Content’ pieces I could contribute :)
smettee
/ June 20, 2012Hey B. G.
Nice blog.
To carry on the topic of writing to one person, I know some authors who cut out a photo a person from, say, a magazine and peg it above their desk and write like they are talking to that person.
Take care,
Steve Mettee
TheWriteThought.com
B.G. Mitchell
/ June 20, 2012Thanks Steve.
I currently have a souvenir Elvis guitar plectrum (from Sun Studios trip a couple years back) resting underneath my monitor. Maybe I am subconsciously writing for The King?
Steve Mettee
/ June 22, 2012The King! Absolutely.
Sabra Bowers
/ June 22, 2012Yes. I like the idea of having an ideal reader. My social, work, and family environment is diverse and I can sometimes care too much about their reaction. I want to get better at
allowing myself to just be me. It’s time. Hey, maybe my ideal reader could be myself. I’ll think on that one. Enjoyed your post, Ben.
B.G. Mitchell
/ June 22, 2012Thanks very much Sabra.
We are multi-dimensional beings us humans, aren’t we. I’ve found trying to pick which dimension is most ‘user-friendly’ to share is exhausting.
Let it all hang out, I say. Let it all hang out.