To write for impact, you must—before writing—define your audience, objective, and takeaway.
1. Audience
Who are you writing to? Be as specific as possible. Picture a real, complex person that exists in the world. Write as if you are speaking to one person; preferably someone you know and like. If you don’t, you not only lose intimacy with the reader, you run the risk of pandering to a stereotype. [1]
2. Objective
What do you want your reader to think, feel, and/or do? Pick a single objective, not seven. Once you know what you want to accomplish with your writing, the quickest way to make it happen is to appeal to something your reader already wants or believes (which means, yet again, you better know your audience). Unless you’re writing to your parents, people don't care about your hopes and dreams, they care about their own. To achieve your objective, help the reader achieve theirs first. [1]
3. Takeaway
What do you want the audience to remember? If they forget 90% of what you write, what's the one concept you want them to take to the grave? In news writing, this is called the “lede,” AKA, the first sentence that gives the crucial information in one juicy morsel. The simpler the takeaway, the better. Every word matters. If it’s not moving the story forward or enriching your point, it’s detracting from it—and worse, you’re wasting your reader’s time. Your audience is doing you a favor by giving you their time, not the other way around. Put yourself in your their shoes and deliver the goods.
References
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