{"id":991,"date":"2014-08-07T16:51:44","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T04:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=991"},"modified":"2014-08-07T16:51:44","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T04:51:44","slug":"for-whom-are-you-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=991","title":{"rendered":"For whom are you writing?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Zinsser\"<\/a>Many years ago, when I worked in advertising, it used to be said that there were three legs to the successful copywriting stool.<\/p>\n

The first was: Who are you writing for?\u00a0 The second was: What is the single most important thing you have to tell this person?\u00a0 And the third was: Why should they believe you?<\/p>\n

Get one of those things wrong (we were told) and the stool would fall over.<\/p>\n

I remember the ad agencies \u2013 especially the bigger ones \u2013 spending a lot of time and effort defining the target audience.\u00a0 Who was this person?\u00a0 How old were they?\u00a0 Where did they live?\u00a0 Where had they gone to school?\u00a0 Where did they shop?\u00a0 What did they buy? \u00a0What did they believe?<\/p>\n

And then later, when I started writing for magazines, I remember the editor of a sailing magazine telling me that the magazine\u2019s typical reader was \u2018a sea dreamer\u2019: someone who loved the idea<\/em> of offshore cruising \u2013 even though they would probably never get to sail out of sight of land.<\/p>\n

The editor of a business magazine told me that his magazine\u2019s typical reader was a mid-level manager looking for a fast track to the top.\u00a0 \u2018They don\u2019t want to be told that it\u2019s a long road to a C-level job.\u00a0 They want a story with a moral, and a few buzzwords that they can trot out tomorrow.\u2019<\/p>\n

And so, for 20 years or so, I tried to write what I thought the reader wanted to read.\u00a0 Sometimes, the feedback suggested that I got it spot on.\u00a0 At other times, the lack of feedback suggested that perhaps I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

And then I read William Zinsser\u2019s classic guide to writing nonfiction, On Writing Well<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In Chapter 5, The Audience<\/em>, Mr Zinsser convinced me that, even with the best will in the world, you can\u2019t really second guess the reader \u2013 or even the editor.\u00a0 And, in his opinion, the best strategy is always to write for yourself.\u00a0 If your reader likes what you have to say \u2013 and how you say it \u2013 you\u2019ve achieved your objective.\u00a0 And, as Mr Zinsser so cheerfully puts it: \u2018If you lose the dullards back in the dust, you don\u2019t want them anyway.\u2019<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re still reading at this point, then you know that Mr Zinsser was not altogether wrong.\u00a0 And if you\u2019ve already stopped reading \u2026 well, what can I say?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many years ago, when I worked in advertising, it used to be said that there were three legs to the successful copywriting stool. The first was: Who are you writing for?\u00a0 The second was: What is the single most important … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":992,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions\/992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}