Why are you writing?
If writing were a painful process few of us would do it, so it must be assumed that the first reason for writing is to please ourselves. One cry that we hear a lot though, mainly from would-be poets, is: “I am only writing for myself.” Fair enough. Writing is fine therapy, and in your mental country none but your own rules apply, so no outsider comment can be appropriate. However, it’s only vain celebrities who display themselves on the psychiatrist’s couch in public, complete with microphone and video camera; why should you ask anyone else to read your unpolished innermost thoughts? I think this cry of “I am only writing for myself” comes mainly when a piece is criticised, but really, it’s no defence. Purely self-indulgent writing is not likely to be art. If it’s honestly only written for yourself, then keep it to yourself. You’ll enjoy it far more.

Another reason why you put your writing out in public is that you’ve learnt how to do it. So? Are you overcome with astonishment at your own ability? I glaze over on reading the intro to yet another new piece: “I’ve just started writing poetry/comedy/short stories and …” because it usually carries a subtext of “tell me what a jewel this is, and applaud how clever I am!” Read this carefully: the ability to string together a thousand words vaguely connected to a theme does not automatically deserve a round of applause. Neither does the ability to spot two words that rhyme and stick them on the ends of a pair of lines of roughly the same length. Adding in your intro that it’s “just a bit of fun” is no excuse for pushing your early attempts into the public eye. Practising any skill is good, and honest exercise hones the performance, but poetry (as an easy example) should be like jewellery – maximum effect compressed into a minimum of space. To carry the craftsman analogy further: Carl Fabergé at the height of his skills produced the world’s finest and cleverest pieces of enamelwork, but I bet his first attempts were lumpy and misshapen and rightly chucked to the back of the scrap pile. You will not reach perfection in ANY genre at your first attempt. Pause for thought please.

A third bad reason for putting your writing in any public arena is that you showed your very first attempt to your friends or family and they thought it was fantastic. But would they have said the same if it had been under a stranger’s name? Turning this around, why should strangers read your work if you can’t be bothered to explain all those intricate, uniquely quirky facts you had in your head when you wrote it? Either write in such a way that insider jokes are comprehensible, or keep them where they belong: inside.

If on the other hand your reason for writing is to make The World sit up and take notice of you, do remember that The World has every right not to bother communicating with you in return. Many great artists have been famously egocentric, but insecurity and attention-seeking on their own do not make a good writer. Indeed, attention-seeking paraded by bad writing is an invitation to death by critique, resulting in the howl with which we started: “but I’m only writing for myself!”

It may indeed be true that you have a real story to tell which deserves telling, and a good writer will of course make the most of any story, but it’s such an easy claim to make that this “reason” has all the hidden potential of a minefield. So often, so miserably often, the story is as commonplace as the telling is pedestrian. There’s no sin worse than being boring. If the need to preach is urgent, might it be better served by starting an ad campaign, or a voluntary organisation?

And a final, awful reason for putting your writing out is always revealed by that secret gleam in the eye: “I know it’s only <insert genre here> but I’d really like to be the next <insert name of best selling and rich writer here>…” Are you hoping that once your work is seen by “The Public” then publishers by the drove will smack their foreheads at your verbal brilliance? that, in recognition of your genius, they will fall at your feet and compete to stuff fifty-pound notes into your socks while begging for the right to stage your play / film your novel / sell thousands of copies of your work? Hm. Please believe me: if you felt personally nettled by more than half of the above reasons for writing, then this one is going to pass you by. You cannot “be” a writer, still less a best selling and rich writer, without a lot of self-discipline and PRIVATE practising, a lot of editing, and a gritty self-belief. It’s rare in any case to make serious money out of writing, even WITH a lot of gritty etcetera. Do not cite J K Rowling; she’s an exception that proves the rule.

Your best reason for writing publicly should be that your skilled selection of everybody’s words is a uniquely perfect way of giving other people something – whether information, religious enlightenment, emotion or pleasure. Often, the professional writer is pretty closely constrained as to what he should write: feature article of 2,000 words for “X-Shire Life Magazine”, on that nurseryman who grows rare trees up in the hills beyond So-and-So. That takes away the amateur’s fun of choosing subject and form, but it does promise payment. And readers.

Writing for “other people” brings us to the next question.

Who are you writing for?
The good writer understands exactly who his readers are, even if writing is not his main profession. The teacher or lecturer knows that his students need precisely this information, in this order, with these exercises so they can practise using the principles he is putting forward; he knows their age and the likely background interests that he can rely on to link with his ideas. An expert compiling a book on bird identification, a policeman tersely writing up a report, a skilled stand-up comic in the pub, or that feature journalist writing in the house style, has to use precisely the right means of communication for his given audience. When should he use abbreviations, slang, jargon or swear words – or not? when is some explanation necessary for comprehension, and when will a mere hint be enough? He learns through practice exactly where the boundaries are stretchable, and how far to go, and where the absolute taboos lie. By knowing his audience, he can make use of its rules to communicate.

For instance, if you are writing a story for children, you have to have some idea of how certain ages think. Whose point of view should you adopt? A child hero should only have so much world knowledge and no more, to be attractive to his readers. Too little, and they’ll dismiss him as a fool from whom they can’t learn anything. Too much, and he comes over as an insufferable know-it-all version of an adult – You! Where do the boundaries of children’s belief lie? Find out, and use your knowledge to convince this particular audience as you tell the story.

Even if your genre is wildly elastic, like science fiction or fantasy, you need to do some research. How much can readers be expected to guess about laws within worlds you have created?  Formulate them for yourself, whether they’re natural laws or society’s laws, and see if they will make sense to your readers. Will they work in the story? So often, for example, a human is dropped into a sci fi or fantasy situation and immediately finds a local inhabitant who can précis the political or social scene in a paragraph or three. Could you do the same for an alien who landed in your back garden this minute? Me neither. You’ve just learnt something about your readership: you will bore them if you write about unbelievably well-informed natives. Paint the story for them with a little more subtlety and skill.

If you’re writing non-fiction, such as biography, popular science, sports or hobbies, you are probably aiming for publication, in which case, precisely what group of people is really your paying audience, and how much can you assume they already know? Don’t dismiss this as a genre you’ll never try: non-fiction books are a sound way onto a publisher’s list. Of course, it’s far less egocentric than fiction, and it will certainly cost you time, money, and intellectual and physical effort. You’ll have to specialise: water-ski properly, perfect your repertoire of amazing ten minute soufflés, or write up your Travels in Hammersmith as well as Travels in the Hindu Kush, but hey, life’s not a rehearsal, right? Non-fiction is still a far better bet for publication than novels and – ah – poetry.

There are several very good reasons why so many publishers and agents state in their Writers’ Handbook or Yearbook entry: NO POETRY. If you think you are a poet, go back and read the paragraphs under the heading “Why am I writing?” In fact read the whole lot again. You are not going to communicate anything but your own egocentricity through a mist of unstructured babble, because readers and listeners will have departed long before your navel-gazing Muse drones into silence. Remember what I said about Fabergé.

When you finally recognise why you are writing, when you understand the readership you are writing for and you actually use that knowledge to underpin your writing, then you can make some claims to being a writer. You’ll often have to conform to rules in the arena for which you’re writing, no matter whether you want real money or only the respect of your peers. Editing and even completely re-writing will be necessary. If such discipline puts you off, and if you think working within a boundary sounds uninspiring and drudging, then by all means go and write splurgy lists of mis-spelt words about abstractions or daisies, erratic (that's not a typo) fantasies about space cities and sacred forests, or the memoirs of a garden slug with illustrations by the author. Just don’t expect a large or enthusiastic readership.

Before you can sweep readers confidently into your own wonderful world of language you should know, without thinking, the answers to the twin questions: Who am I writing for, and why?