Writing for an Audience – Praxis Wednesday Response

Last night on August 1st the Praxis Wednesday guest was Jason Feifer. He spoke on writing techniques, especially creative writing and article writing.

The question of who I’m writing for has always been a challenge for me, especially while I was in school because when asked this the answer seemed to always be: the teacher, or the other student who I had to ask to edit it, and that never gave much direction. I’ve slowly learned that even if I don’t know who will find a piece of writing I’ve written and read it, I need to plan for a certain kind of reader with every piece of writing I do. I also realized that I need to write so that anyone can read my writing and understand it, that is, I need to always provide as much context as possible

I’ve learned that I need to give more of a story arc to everything I write, that is I need to provide direction in my writing. I need to provide a main character, even if it’s me. I’ve always liked talking through ideas and concepts so story arcs have somewhat eluded me at times, especially how to develop them myself.

Last night learned that I shouldn’t try to ramble despite the frustrating page counts I was given in school and that instead, I should strive to ensure that each word and phrase deserves to be in a given piece of writing. This is a wonderful challenge to me because I won’t feel the need to write more or want to write more than I truly have to say. I think I’ll be more excited to write more in the future because of this encouragement.

Another thing Jason reminded us all of is using a consistent voice, something that novice writers are often missing altogether. I might have to continue to research how to present this better myself. But I’m excited to make my writing even better with this.

Lastly, I was reminded that I need to show the characters in my writing making decisions and why they made the decisions, not just telling what the decision was. I hope this will improve my storytelling abilities the most right away.

Thanks to Jason for sharing his thoughts with us Praxis participants. His website can be found at JasonFeifer.com