Write for an Audience of One

How defining your audience makes your writing more impactful

Whether you’re writing a Substack essay, a freelance article, or a novel, you need to be clear about the people and topic you want to address.

Consider this wellspring of wisdom from

Lara d'Entremont

, my friend, mentor, and author of The Painted Fairytale:

“The saying goes that if you write for everyone you will write for no one, and the adage is true. Writing that tries to reach everyone often falls flat; it’s missing the details that catch a reader’s heart and attention. Writing that stretches too broadly can’t connect with anyone because it’s unable to dive into the specifics a person may be dealing with.”

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, narrowing your audience allows you to connect more deeply with your readers than writing about universal themes in broad, ambiguous terms.

It’s far better to narrow your focus and craft a piece that will speak meaningfully to a small group of readers than to cast your net too wide and come up empty.

As Lara explained to me:

“When you decide to write about anxiety in the college years as opposed to anxiety in general, you’re able to tell that story about how the boys in the other dorm slid frozen urine under their friend’s door in the middle of the night. You’re able to use examples about the angst of dating while also facing the pressures of studying enough for the upcoming exam. Now you have the attention of every college student, either laughing at your story or feeling the clench in their stomach as they relate to the anxiety you described.”

Lara also said, “I try to write each piece to one person I actually know. I envision them as I type and ask what they specifically need to hear. Sometimes that person is a former version of myself, a beloved friend, or a fellow writer.

According to Lara, writing for a reader isn’t simply about our angle or thesis but the sentence-level decisions we make, including word choice, use of parentheses, and the tone of our voice—all the elements that make our writing more engaging, gripping, and heart-wrenching.

Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice (2005)

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