Everyday Canvas

Writers Serving Readers

Prompt: “Any writing that’s meant to be seen by a Reader must serve the Reader.” June Casogrande.
Do you agree? In what ways can a writing serve its readers?

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This idea of writer serving the reader is true, although most of us do not even admit its truth to ourselves, yours truly included. If it weren’t so, if we weren’t writing for the readers but for ourselves only, wouldn’t we write our stuff in a notebook with a lock on top of it? I remember owning such a diary type of notebook in my teenage years, in dinosaur time, and I used it, too. I even made up my own coded alphabet for writing into that poor diary, which must have ended in the trash eventually.

Diary and memoir type of writing aside—okay, a little aside since most people do publish their memoirs--, we need, we want, others to see what we write, and we offer our work to the public or, at least, to some section of the public. Then, if one offers something to someone else, it should have some use to the one offered and indirectly to the one who offers it, shouldn’t it?

Readers read our work sometimes for entertainment, but mostly for finding something special-- some experience, learning, circumstance, or theme--that touches their lives. This could be a theme of hope, perseverance, suffering, something to overcome, or something that reflects their own understanding or experiences. This service of the writer to the readers exists at every level of expertise. This service is so human-centered that even the writing that fails as craft or art can become popular if it says something to its readers.

Why do you think people read even the diary-type of writing like some blogs that are open to the public on the net? Are those readers voyeurs? Maybe voyeurism has something to do with it, but readers still are searching for experiences or feelings they can identify with in a positive or negative way.

As to our craft to serve the reader well, understanding writing and why and the way we write is important, but the most important part is learning our craft as much as we can, which is how to structure ideas, emphasize what’s important, how to cut excess wordiness, how to use the grammar in a practical way to help our work, and how to make our writing the most readable possible.

The fact is, we writers cannot make every single reader content in the world or make everyone appreciate our work all time. And neither should we try, but we can be faithful to and truthful with our craft and do the best we can do with it.