Writing for your audience: the judge

Always write for your audience - whatever you are writing.

Few writers make a living from their fiction. One of my side gigs is writing social histories for sentence mitigation attorneys. When I'm writing them, I write for the final audience: the judge.

While the attorneys will review and tweak my reports before handing them over to the court, they are not my final audience - that's the judge who is deciding the client's future. I need to consider how the judge will regard the client.

They'll already have a report filed by the probation department, which details criminal history and includes some social history as well as outlining sentencing parameters. Fortunately, that report is provided to defense well before the sentencing date.

I start by reading the probation report as if I were the judge - considering how it sounds, how it might influence sentencing and why. When I start interviews, I know what needs to be countered.

I also consider that the judge sees convicted criminals day after day, many of whom show little genuine remorse, have long histories of criminal activity, and little to support the possibility of success in turning their life around. As I interview, I look for ways to make the client stand out. Starting with relatives and friends, expanding out to teachers, employers, and other professionals, I find people willing to share positive events in the client's life and offering support to help them stay out of trouble.

Approaching the judge from their point of view can make the difference.

Write for Your Audience: Age

Always write for your audience. Consider their age. How does it effect their reading habits and preferences?

I recently wrote about a critique of my novel that will appeal primarily to adults who were teens in the nineteen-sixties and -seventies - that's my audience for this novel. The critiquer talked about how online life, taking in information in small bites, has made the book publishing industry change what they want in writing style.

Well, first of all, many readers in my audience are not on social media - or they do the bare minimum. Secondly, I started self-publishing because I was a few years ahead of a trend - I was pitching gritty, realistic YA fiction when they wanted the next Twilight. I'll make sure my writing on this novel is tight, but I'm not going to try and fit a trend that may pass. I probably won't get an agent or publisher interested, but I can self-publish.

When writing for children, you need to know what age group you expect to reach.

A talented artist friend, Jo Hans-Stafford, had a picture book of her travels to Europe that she intended for young children, most likely to be read to them at first. She took it to a critique group that was not particularly familiar with picture books for young children, and they wanted her to add more text to each page and describe her journey more fully. I reinforced Jo's belief they were off track with that advice - she'd looked at enough children's books to realize that, for toddlers being read to by parents, just a few words a page is right.

On the other hand, as children get older, they still enjoy illustrated books, but they have longer attention spans and can listen to more information with each picture. Kathryn J. Reed had teachers who enjoyed reading her little stapled-together stories to their younger elementary students. We put eight of the stories together and published them in a nice book.

Not every person of a given age is identical, but knowing the age of your audience gives you a starting point.

Write for Your Audience: Family or The World?

Always write for your Audience. The first consideration? Is this just for you, for your family and friends, or do you want the world to have access and buy it?

If you're writing just for you, anything goes. The main consideration is how to keep it private - and whether you want it to be discovered when you're gone! If you do expect it to be read by others eventually, you probably want to keep them in mind as you write.

If you're writing for family and friends, you can be somewhat relaxed about form and grammar - but you want it to be readable, so some editing is advisable. You also have to consider how your content will be perceived by them - and how that may change their perception of you. Will you damage relationships by sharing this?

If you're writing for the world, it's a lot more work. Even if you're thinking of it as a hobby, you need to meet professional standards of editing and format - as well as expectations particular to your genre - if you expect the world to buy your work.

So, before you begin: Who are you writing for?