In the introduction to Bagombo Snuff Box, Kurt Vonnegut discusses psychiatrist Edmund Bergler's claim that "most writers in his experience wrote to please one person they knew well, even if they didn't realize they were doing that. It wasn't a trick of the fiction trade. It was simply a natural human thing to do, whether or not it could make a story better."
Vonnegut figured out that he wrote for his sister, Allie. "Anything I knew Allie wouldn't like I crossed out. Everything I knew she would get a kick out of I left in."
This concept is also reflected in one of his "Creative Writing 101" rules: "Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia."
I'm curious . . . who do you write for? Who is your audience when your writing flows?
I like the literary reference as a focus for your brief essay.
ReplyDeleteTo answer the question, I write for my daughter. I don't write for who she is now at twenty-two, but for the more mature woman who finds my essays after my death and upon reading, sighs, "Now, I understand my mother."
Great question. I've heard too that you should speak to one person in an audience. I have 1000+ "friends" on Facebook and I publish my stuff to them... so different people come to mind as I'm drawing or writing. I was thinking, as I read about Vonnegut, that the one person he knew well was himself. But maybe that is the last person we meet in our lives.
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