Scott Oldford Site

Tag: writing process

  • How the “Ideal Reader” Myth Hurts Your Writing Process

    How the “Ideal Reader” Myth Hurts Your Writing Process

    A lot of writing advice encourages you to market to your audience by defining your ideal reader.

    It says to think of your reader as one person, create a profile and write for that person.

    You’ll even find templates for defining your ideal reader — fake head shots and all. They’ll ask you to name the reader and list their demographics, interests and job. They’ll ask you to explain why this reader is totally in love with what you write.

    The problem? This exercise does nothing to help you understand what actual readers want from you.

    The “ideal reader” myth

    When you set out to define your “ideal reader,” you’ve probably already decided what you want to write — maybe even written it.

    You’re sitting on that romance novel, self-help book or blog about what cats have taught you about love, and now you’re ready to market it. So you dream up a reader who fits the bill. They’re male or female, between ages 18 and 54, probably own cats and are single. So, obviously, they’ll love your blog.

    Voila. You’ve got your ideal reader.

    Except that’s useless. All you’ve done is reverse engineer an audience for yourself, and you can’t do that with real people.

    If you want to attract actual readers, you’re going to have to do it the other way around: Learn what real readers want, and write it for them.

    How to write what your audience wants to read

    To understand who your audience (actually) is and how to write for them, I’ve come up with a simple exercise.

    Borrowing from the way software developers plan projects by first working to understand their end users through a user story, I define readers with what I call a “reader story.”

    The reader story is a simple way to understand who you write for, what they need from you and why.

    The exercise might feel similar to fantasizing about your ideal reader, but it’s goal is different. Instead of inventing a reader for something you’re determined to write, the reader story helps you plan your writing around helping the audience achieve some goal.

    To create your reader story, fill in this statement about the typical person you expect to read your work:

    As a [type of person], they want [some goal] so that [some reason].

    For example:

    As a millennial mother of young kids,

    They want advice on raising children, self-care and relationships,

    So that they can balance being a parent with a full-time job while still enjoying me-time and a relationship with their partner.

    That reader story might drive content for a parenting and lifestyle site like Scary Mommy.

    If you don’t know anything about the typical person who might read your work, do your research before creating a reader story. Don’t invent a reader you hope exists.

    How to use your reader story to plan writing projects

    Once you create a reader story, it should drive all the decisions you make about your writing.

    Does that blog topic help the reader achieve some goal? Does that book cover appeal to their some reason? Are those marketing platforms frequented by this type of person?

    Write down your reader story, and stick it somewhere you’ll see every time you write.

    Keeping your reader’s needs top of mind can help you make decisions about:

    • Which topics to tackle to get your story across.
    • Your goals for what you write.
    • Which products make sense for disseminating your story or ideas.
    • Which platforms are best for distributing your work.
    • The tone and voice you’ll use to speak to your readers.
    • When and how to release your work to have the greatest impact.

    Developers rely on the user story to focus on features customers actually want — and leave behind the stuff that’s super cool technologically but totally unnecessary in real life.

    Use the reader story the same way in your writing. You might love the anecdote you’ve found to open that article about your grandmother’s butternut squash soup recipe… but does it serve the reader’s goal of, you know, making a good butternut squash soup?

    Yeah, the reader story will make you get real honest with yourself about the value of what you’re writing.

    For more guidance on using your reader story to plan writing projects and answer those big questions for everything you write, I invite you to download my free guide: “How to Write Anything (Well).”
    links
    no
    1
    links
    no
    1

  • An Evernote Guide for Writers: 5 Ways to Use it for All Your Projects

    An Evernote Guide for Writers: 5 Ways to Use it for All Your Projects

    The first thing I do when I start a new writing project isn’t  outlining or researching.

    Nope — first, I set up an Evernote folder expressly for that project.

    Haven’t heard of Evernote?

    It’s a free app that lets you collect about a half-dozen types of notes (text, screenshots, photos, voice memos and more), organizing them with tags and folders so you never lose anything. Whether you’re working on a novel, your blog, or work for clients, Evernote can shave tons of hassle and friction from your writing process.

    You can access your notes three ways: through a program on your computer, through any web browser or through a smartphone app. Your notes sync across all your devices, so you always have access to everything from your grocery list to your novel notes.

    I affectionately refer to Evernote as my “exobrain.”

    One reason I love Evernote is because it’s so adaptable to anyone’s writing process.

    Here’s a quick Evernote guide with five ways I use it for every writing project.

    1. Collect research

    From learning about flintlock pistols for your steampunk zombie novel to tracking down statistics for an article on immigration, writing requires research.

    This is what Evernote was born for.

    Whenever you come across internet research pertinent to your project, you can save it directly into a project folder in Evernote with the web clipper extension for your browser. Photos, articles, bookmarks and even screenshots all sync into the program without having to leave your browser.

    Evernote even has a feature on the smartphone app that allows you to quickly snap photos — of the cover of a book you want to read later, scenery that’s perfect for world building, you name it.

    Need to capture written text? The “page camera” feature is optimized for handwriting or typed content.

    2. Gather your thoughts and find inspiration

    When you’re a writer, the world’s fair game, right?

    We take inspiration where we can get it — and Evernote is perfect for quickly capturing ideas and epiphanies in the moment.

    I used to jot down interesting ideas I didn’t know what to do with on scraps of paper and throw them in an ideas file folder. Odd character quirks, overheard scraps of dialogue, photographs of fascinating places, and ideas for stories I wanted to pitch to magazines all lived in a chaotic, unsearchable mess.

    As often as not, though, those little scraps of paper also ended up going through the wash or getting tossed out by accident.

    Now, I write them directly into Evernote in an inspiration file that I can visit whenever I’m looking for a little creative boost. Plus, it’s searchable, and I can tag ideas with things like “character” or “article” so I can easily find the right category later.

    You can even leave yourself a voice memo if you don’t have time to type.

    3. Work on the go

    Stop logging onto social media to kill time, and start using Evernote instead to write a few hundred words on your latest project.

    While some writers enjoy drafting in Evernote, I prefer typing up scenes and then pasting them into my Scrivener file when I’m back at my laptop. Evernote isn’t bad to write full drafts in, though — it has most of the same features you would find in a dedicated word processor, including fonts, alignments and styles.

    You can also fill those spare minutes by reading through some of the research articles you may have clipped from the web, saving to read later.

    4. Organize your edits

    If you’re working on a larger project — whether that’s a novel, memoir or feature article — there are a lot of balls to juggle. Particularly when it comes to the editing stage.

    I tend to use Evernote a lot during the editing process, creating checklists for myself of problems I need to fix, or continuity issues I need to watch out for. This lets me jot down any thoughts I have (like the need to check the color of a character’s eyes, or add references to an event earlier in the story) without breaking my writing workflow.

    When I get ready to do an editing pass, I categorize all of those tasks, then check them off the list as I fix them.

    5. Collaborate with others

    If your writing requires any sort of collaboration, Evernote makes it easy to share what you’re working on.

    Along with the ability to share notes and folders, Evernote also offers a dressed-down chat platform that allows you to converse about what you’re working on.

    Then, instead of looking through your email, text messages, or Slack to find out what conversations you had about a certain subject, they’re all saved (and searchable) in your Evernote.

    Have you tried Evernote to streamline your writing process? What are your favorite tips and tricks?