{"id":1113,"date":"2015-10-13T10:38:27","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T21:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1113"},"modified":"2015-10-13T10:38:27","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T21:38:27","slug":"write-what-you-would-want-to-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1113","title":{"rendered":"Write what you would want to read"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=978\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-978\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-978\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Writing-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Writing\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Writing-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Writing-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Writing.jpg 540w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Young writers, inexperienced writers, often ask: How can I know what my readers will want to read?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a question I used to ask myself.\u00a0 What will hook my readers?\u00a0 What will keep them reading?\u00a0 What will send them away happy?\u00a0 Or mad?\u00a0 Or thinking seriously about something that they hadn\u2019t previously thought about?<\/p>\n<p>When I was a young writer, I kept a scrapbook of other writers\u2019 good openings and endings, and used them as models for my own writing. \u00a0After all, these openings and endings (and the bits in between) had worked for me.\u00a0 They\u2019d hooked me.\u00a0 They\u2019d kept me reading.\u00a0 And they\u2019d left me with a smile on my face or a buzz in my brain.<\/p>\n<p>But then, as the years went by, I realised that I didn\u2019t really need the scrapbook.\u00a0 All I needed to do was to write an opening that captured <em>my<\/em> interest, a middle that held<em> my<\/em> interest, and a satisfactory ending.<\/p>\n<p>I couldn\u2019t know what my readers would want to read.\u00a0 (Ninety-nine-point-something percent of my readers were people I\u2019d never met and was never likely to meet.)\u00a0 All I could know was what I would want to read myself.<\/p>\n<p>So now when a young writer asks: How can I know what my readers will want to read?\u00a0 I tell them: You can\u2019t.\u00a0 Just write what <em>you<\/em> would want to read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Young writers, inexperienced writers, often ask: How can I know what my readers will want to read? It\u2019s a question I used to ask myself.\u00a0 What will hook my readers?\u00a0 What will keep them reading?\u00a0 What will send them away &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1113\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1114,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions\/1114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}