Writing with your ideal reader in mind

Have you ever thought about your ideal reader? Who should it be? How should it be?

I had a difficult time answering these questions because I usually write primarily for myself, so I think that my ideal reader resembles me and my worldview somehow.

As I said previously, I am attending an online course about writing, blogging, finding an audience and more, and one of the first assignments was to re-write something with our ideal reader in mind. Since I wasn’t sure about what to rewrite, I decided to start a piece from scratch and what came out is something that will probably end up in my next fiction project.

Be that as it may, this is the result of my exercise. Enjoy and let me know what you (honestly) think!

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Let’s face it.

We all feel much more than we let transpire. We feel much more emotions than we care to admit, even to ourselves. In every single moment of life we are overwhelmed by a rush of feelings that we can’t even name, let alone comprehend.

Some of these feelings scares us so much that we deny them in the exact moment we feel them. Like that moment when you would grab that heavy productivity award statuette and smash it into your boss head. You would just hit him again and again, watch the blood stain the white wall, and let him die on the floor. What a pity that murder your boss is considered socially unacceptable! But that’s why we are taught to hide even the bare thought.

Other emotions makes us feel ashamed. Like that brief  moment in which a person, with whom we had shared our entire life, appears as a complete stranger. It’s just an instant, then everything feels normal again, but we never ever confess that feeling to a soul.

And then there are that tiny, incredible moments of complete satisfaction: the pleasure of a well delivered sarcastic remark, of a piece of the puzzle that finds its place, of a good blow that hits the target. There’s nothing to share about these feelings, they’re so brief that we can’t even explain them.

I never, not even for a single moment, filtered those rush of emotions. I never forbade myself the freedom to feel. I always believed in the power of brutal and unconditioned honesty towards others but above all towards myself.

And maybe that wasn’t such a bright idea. If I hadn’t indulged in every single impulse, probably I wouldn’t be here, stuck between four walls, waiting for the meeting with that hideous woman who represents everything I ever hated.

She knows. I don’t know how, but she understood. She knows what I’m looking for and looks at me with that black, piercing, digging eyes of hers. She knows what I want and she knows that I’m ready to do all that’s necessary to get it. It isn’t surprising she doesn’t trust me, isn’t it? But if I play my cards well she won’t have a choice. And I’ll be out again, feeling that overwhelming powerful stream of emotions.