Welcome to 5-minute writing tips – answers to questions that clients ask me that can help you be a better/happier/more efficient writer in 5 minutes, 500 words or less
Today’s question: “Why do people keep asking me to think about my audience?”
I was working with an awesome candidate recently on a Fulbright grant. This person is imminently qualified for the grant, has an amazing project, has cultivated contacts in the country she wants to visit, and is really the whole package. When I read the first draft of her application, though, something was off. It was coming across less as an application to go do cool stuff half way across the world, and more as a defense of her academic history.
So we talked, and I realized she was coming off of a pretty brutal (and ultimately successful) tenure battle. Her application was fighting that last battle, so coming across a defense of her academic career as a whole. So as we talked through the application and the edits she would make, our conversation was all about audience: who would be reading it and what they needed to hear. I convinced her that her record would be sufficient to persuade them that she was an expert in the field. They would want to know is why she was the best person to do that project in that place. All of the pieces were there, but the narrative needed to shift.
Steven King says to write the first draft with the door shut, and the second draft with the door open. What does that mean for us? The first go through, just get ideas on paper - all of them. They’ll be ugly, misspelled, rough sentences, and all of that is ok. The first draft, don’t censor yourself. Pretend no one will ever read it - the door is closed.
Then, once it’s all there, “open the door.” Revise with an ear for how this will sound to your audience(s). Sometimes, this is easy - you’re the expert, you know your people, write for them.
Other times, you might need help. One of the biggest questions I ask as an editor is who the intended audience will be. Who is going to be reading it, and what do you want them to think? If your book proposal mentions an audience of practitioners, I’m going to flag for you places that your’re sounding overly academic. I will try to read as a member of a tenure committee, or a search committee, and anticipate their questions or objections. Sometimes, all it takes is a few sentences sprinkled throughout the document to appeal to your target audience - and that can be enough to land you the job/publication/promotion.
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