The Value Of My Writing

Writing for an audience was not my strong suit before coming to UMass. My writing always focused on speaking to whoever stumbled upon it. To me, literature, in any form, was always meant for the masses. I composed my words in a manner anyone could understand. That my ideas were understood was always more important than impressing my audience. Why place your ideas on top of a tower of words built from the depths of your lexicon? People only do it to build the tower so high its onlookers must strain to see the top. Through the strain from the astounding height of the tower, the onlookers come to believe that what is at the top must be brilliant. People hide their ideas amid unnecessarily complex vocabulary because they know the underlying ideas are not as complex as they appear. In other words, some writers are compensating. …show more content…
To me, the best course of action was to always write with the intent anyone who reads my writing could understand it. However, now I see my thinking was flawed. Writing is for everyone, but this all-encompassing delineation of writing’s ability to be understood does not stem from every piece of writing having the ability to speak to everyone. Writing is for everyone because there is a piece of writing written especially for any group and any person. Therefore, it is important to write to an audience. Not speaking to everyone in your writing provides you with more possibilities in how you use other aspects of your writing such as voice and form. In my piece 47 Minute Lesson, I begin by writing, “I’d much rather lay here. I’d much rather stay here and wallow away in this blissful feeling of having no