Writing for the Reader

We publish things on the Internet because we have something to say. Ideally, it would be something potentially valuable. But even if it is valuable, there is no guarantee people will read it. Something I write might be helpful, but there is plenty of other helpful content available. The amount of potentially helpful content on the Internet is more than a person could ever digest. If anyone were to ever read my stuff, I hope they found that I respected their time and provided them with something valuable.

With everything I post, I try to keep the readers in mind. I understand time and attention are nonrenewable. A person can only read so much in a lifetime; they must choose carefully. They choose based on expectations. They expect to be either informed, inspired, or entertained. Their expectation determines how excited they are to begin reading.

They read at a pace that feels like progress and want the text to be comprehensible at that pace. The reader will only slow down if the text seems particularly important. In most cases, the reader will move on without fully understanding. The reader trips over typos, pauses on unfamiliar words, gets tangled in poorly structured sentences, or lost between disconnected ideas. Each of these require the reader to work (more or less). If the work exceeds the expected reward, the reader will likely give up.

The aim of the writer should be to convey a clear and potentially impactful message. If done well, the content will maintain the reader’s attention. If the reader grows weary, their mind may drift on to something else and other thoughts rise to the surface. Returning to the page requires work.

Many writers fail because they do not focus on their message. Instead, they try to impress with fancy words and not-so-clever abstraction. These usually end up sounding like someone the writer wants to be rather than who the writer truly is. Authenticity is the least a writer can give for the reader’s attention.