Responding as Writers

The idea of writing for an audience may be unfamiliar for many of us; it certainly is a new consideration for me. I'm very comfortable writing for my own enjoyment or my own research. Writing to communicate my findings with another person raises frightening considerations. How do I know what my audience will connect with? What do they need from me in order to understand what I'm saying? How do I find the answers to these questions, especially if I don't know my audience personally?

Fear not! In class on Friday, after reading Paul Auster's "Why Write?" we identified some details that make writing interesting. First of all, he created context by giving details that fleshed out the story; thus we cared about the story (not just a "then I did this and then I did this" roller coaster).

I also noticed how many of us had a personal response to the story, mostly because we could identify with the emotions experienced by the main character. This emotion answers the question, "How do I relate to this story?" We have all felt disappointment. I imagine we have all idolized someone or something, especially at that young age. Maybe we don't know the first thing about baseball, but we know about wanting something and not getting it.

Thirdly, the piece very clearly answers the question, "So what?" By drawing the thread from the experience with Willie Mays to the devastation felt to carrying a pencil to using that pencil, Auster creates the story that this childhood experience caused him to become a writer.

This personal essay, I think, stands as a concise model of good writing. However, I encourage you to use it to deepen your reading. Because you all are reading books you enjoy (if you are not, stop now and get one you do enjoy), you are experiencing some connection, some hook. As you read, question that connection. How do I relate to this story? Why do I care? How has the author managed to keep me invested in the lives of people very distant from me? If you are reading Jaws, what makes the book different from newspaper accounts of shark attacks that happen all the time? If you are reading Redwall or any book that uses animal characters, how is it that you can understand what the animals are feeling?

I suspect that you will start to notice what it is you like about your favorite writing, you may appreciate the books more, and you will have more tools to improve your own writing.