Most writers are natural people watchers. Observing our surroundings is fuel for the next short story, novel, or essay. We watch, listen, and jot down conversations or one-liners that can lead to a great piece of writing. But, you say, that applies only to fiction writers. Not necessarily, I say. Although my goal as a writer is to meet the needs of my clients, accomplishing that means first meeting the needs of the reader.

A writer's work might be lively, brilliant, creative...all good things...but if the message doesn't appeal to the intended audience, it won't get read.

What motivates a person to read what you write? To start, it must be relevant to the reader. And how do you know what's relevant? You take a seat in the audience.

You people watch. You listen to conversations. You look at how people dress, what they eat, and where they work. What's their daily life like? What keeps them up at night? What drives their decisions?

And ask yourself why should they care about your subject matter. Writers need to determine what's important to their audience and write to that. If it's not relevant to readers' daily lives, they won't read it.

The challenge is to frame your message so it piques the reader's interest and hits home with a new way of looking at an old problem, or revealing a problem they didn't know they had.

Kristina Anderson is President of EasyRead Copywriting, LLC, a company specializing in plain language communications. She can be reached at Kristina@easyreadcopywriting.com

Please feel free to forward this article as long as you keep author byline information intact. No portion of this article may be copied, reproduced or altered in any way without express permission from author.

~ Visit Kristina on the Web at EasyReadWriting.com

About the Author

As President of EasyRead Copywriting, Kristina Anderson is committed to providing people from all walks of life with the crucial information they need to know. She has tutored children and adults and has experience working with low literacy and limited English-speaking patient populations.