Dr. John A. King discusses the tension between writing for art and writing for an audience. He argues that authenticity matters most: audiences detect when writers chase popularity over genuine expression, and his work across fiction, memoir, and trauma recovery shows why the message itself must come first.
I don't know if that's live yet or not.
I think I'm in a process of getting this manuscript together, and I think one of the challenges we have as writers is whether or not we're writing for the art of writing or whether or not we're writing for publishers. And I think that is a challenge because when you're writing for art, when you're writing for the joy of doing what you love to do, then that is a driver that is totally different than writing for an audience. Now I understand that that we write for audiences. I understand we write to get our work out, that we want our work to get out is what we want. But are we writing for it to be published or are we writing because we feel we've got something to say? And I think that's really important, even if it's fictional writing or if it's a memoir or if it's writing around a particular topic, say biohacking trauma or doing something like that. Which are some of the genres I'm involved in, the end audience has to, you have to be aware of them. But then there's the other side of things is that as an author, as a writer, there's something that I feel really fundamental that's important for me to communicate. And that's actually why I write. I don't write for The audience, I write for the message. I feel an obligation to a message that has to be communicated. And I think for all of us that are in the writing space or any form of creative space, it's important to understand that the audience is the end goal. But for us, it's the authenticity and integrity to the message that also has to ring true. Because your audience will always be able to tell, discern that there's something inauthentic about what you're doing if all you're doing is writing for popularity and for an endgame.
So there you go. Cheerio.
