When You Want to Write for Readers

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be read once.

Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise (1938

Sad, but true. Most of what a journalist writes will only be read once while it is pertinent. Once the reader gains the knowledge that is contained within the piece, they move on to disseminate it to the world. As a journalist, I’m fine with that. I only mean to get conversations going. But for a writer working on a piece of fiction, they aim to move people, to touch emotional wells that the reader will want to revisit years down the road by opening up that same book.

I don’t know much about fiction writing. It’s not my cup of tea. But I have gotten into checking out Writesville frequently enough to realize that it takes time, effort and skill to write a good piece of fiction. It’s a good site for a budding novelist to meditate on character building, plot development and all the other aspects of fiction writing that go above my head. Enjoy, bon appetite, and please, read everything twice.