Why are you writing this?

Periodically, in my work, I have to read and grade pieces of student technical writing. If the writing doesn’t clearly convey good enough information, the writer won’t pass the module he is studying. That is motivation at its crudest.

However, periodically I read work that isn’t a student’s read-it-for-the-marks – perhaps from a colleague summarising advice on an aspect of his profession, or a friend quivering with a file-full of fantasy novel – and as you may guess, the latter is by far the most difficult to deal with. I learned some time ago that two questions should be considered before I make any of my writing public, and I also want to feel that they have been considered when I’m reading other people’s writing.

The first is, “Why are you writing?” and the second is, “Who is going to read it?”

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. Fair enough. Writing is fine therapy, and in your mental country none but your own rules apply, so no outsider comment can be appropriate. You can enjoy writing without ever putting it in a public place.

Next on the list is “Look-at-ME!” I glaze over on reading the intro to yet another new piece: “I’ve just started writing poetry/comedy/short stories” or  “this is just a bit of fun … ” because it usually carries a subtext of “tell me what a jewel this is, and applaud how clever I am!” However, it’s only vain celebrities who display themselves on the psychiatrist’s couch in public, complete with microphone and video camera; do you really want anyone else to read those innermost thoughts? Purely self-indulgent writing is not likely to be art and may make you feel very vulnerable when others comment on it. Reviewers very often read writing as being intimately connected to the writer and react to its content rather than the writing.

If 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: “but I’m only writing for myself!” I think this cry of “only writing for myself” comes mainly when a piece is criticised, but really, all you need to do is to hold back and consider what readers’ reactions are likely to be, before posting something publicly. Scathing reviews can be terrifying: if it’s honestly only written for yourself, then keep it to yourself. You’ll be far safer.

Perhaps you showed your very first attempt to your friends or family and they thought it was fantastic. Be honest –  would they have said the same if it had been under a stranger’s name? Turning this around, ask yourself, why should strangers read your work? YOU understood all those intricate, uniquely quirky facts you had in your head when you wrote it, but will they? Write in such a way that insider jokes are comprehensible, or keep them where they belong: inside.

Practising any skill is good, and honest exercise hones the performance, but although Carl Fabergé at the height of his skills produced the world’s finest and cleverest pieces of enamelwork, I bet his first attempts were lumpy and misshapen and rightly chucked to the back of the scrap pile. 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. You will not reach perfection in ANY genre at your first attempt. Pause for thought please.

You may well have a real story to tell, one which deserves telling. A good writer will of course make the most of any story, but this “reason” for writing has all the hidden potential of a minefield. It’s possible to write perfect English and have no story, or to write a brilliant story with many faults in the writing. I’d rather read a good story and polish its writing, than try to bring a correctly written but storyless piece to life, although 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, a web site, or a voluntary organisation?

One truly 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. And she planned the whole Harry Potter series in detail before she ever began Book One.

Your best reason for writing publicly should be that your skilled selection of 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 pretty well 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. 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,  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 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.

I freely admit that although I can turn out a well crafted poem in almost any known form with relative ease and speed, what I write does not seem to bear any relationship to many of the poems I find on “literary” sites and in literary magazines and journals, so it is quite possible that I am not at the cutting edge of this genre – and you may prove my approach wrong by getting unstructured babble published. Then again, is unstructured babble likely to communicate anything but egocentricity? Readers and listeners will surely have departed long before a navel-gazing Muse drones into silence. Remember what I said about Fabergé.

When you have a purpose for your writing, when you understand the readership you are writing for and you 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, possibly more than once. By all means practise in the meantime. Write rubbish, play with words, make ridiculous rhymes, spin impossible fantasies. Sometimes, this practice will produce a spark that will light a memorable fire. Just remember that most of it will be play stuff. Hopping about in the sand pit is only the first move towards winning gold medals for long jump.

Journalists, used to the editor’s daily weeding of their output, often have a personal “spike folder” in which they hide “things I’ve tried that don’t quite work”. This feels kinder than trashing the imperfect stuff. You don’t actually delete anything totally, but you’ll seldom go back and look at it.

However, if discipline puts you off, and if you think working within a boundary and chucking poor stuff away sounds uninspiring and drudging, then by all means go and be slapdash and spontaneous, 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 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?

Afterthought: Philosophy?
One of the reviewers here intelligently asked: “Do I need to have a personal philosophy of writing before I begin?” I don’t think you do, at least not anything fancy or complex. My personal belief is very simple: that an artist/craftsman – in our case, a writer – only needs something to communicate. It could be as simple as a joke, as complex as a life story, as lengthy as history. It is not the same thing as having the ability to speak or put words on paper or screen. I tell my students, whether they are building web sites or editing the parish magazine, that the essential thing is for the medium to be transparent, as near to invisible as possible. Our medium is the written, or sometimes the spoken, word. Our purpose is to get the message across, to tell the story, to the people for whom it is intended. It is not our purpose to have readers exclaim at the brilliance of the writing.

"Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it ... and delete it before sending your manuscript to the press." (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch)

Consciously brilliant writing is a mirror, whereas good, well crafted writing should be a sheet of glass, possibly magnifying or filtering, but clearly revealing the matter we have framed. Then thine is the content, the meaning and the story, for ever and ever, Amen.