What Are You Writing? - Factors that influence what you write

Every piece of writing has a specific reason. Eventually, as writers, our aim is to create content that satisfies a bigger goal. Therefore, it is crucial for writers to understand how they fit into the bigger picture. It helps significantly improve our writing. And to make our writing relevant and impactful, it is crucial to understand a few things before writing. This understanding provides us better clarity, which in turn creates clear copies.

What is the purpose? 

Before writing, consider the reason behind the content. Is it to create awareness about a product? Is it to educate people about existing concepts? Is it to sell a product? Is it about sharing your expert opinion on current affairs? Or is it something totally different? 

Understanding why you are writing, helps you write better because you are thinking about the end goal while writing every sentence. 

What is the type of content? 

Are you writing a newsletter? Are you writing a blog? Are you writing a novel? Are you writing a social media post? and so on...

The content we write is divided into these parts and more because each type of content requires a different writing style. 

A blog is about providing information to the target audience in a simple manner and in a way that is the most familiar to them. 

Whereas when it comes to a novel, you want to describe a story the way you want. Here you have a creative space where you can showcase the sentence structures that you like and hope that your readers will like them too. 

In the same way, when it comes to social media, the aim is to put up something catchy that will grab attention in a sea of posts. 

The list goes on. So, it is important to know why you are writing so that you can choose the appropriate writing style. 

What is the target audience?

Is it children? Is it young adults? Is it product managers? Is it retired people? Is it CEOs? Who is it? 

We need to tweak our writing based on who will be reading it. 

For example, if it is children, it will be simple and entertaining. If it is people from tech, we need to keep it short and add as much information as possible while keeping the style of writing simple. Similarly, the writing differs as the user persona differs. 

Thus, before writing, it is important to have an outline on paper or in your mind (better if it is on paper :)) about the kind of readers that you will cater to with this piece of content. 

In the beginning, the process of asking these questions before writing any content may seem tedious and tough. However, over time it becomes second nature to consider these things (provided you are practicing consistently!).