Know your reader, not just your audience

One friend's pet has just died. The other says, "Never mind — you can always get another pet." Nothing about the grammar or content of that sentence tells you whether it worked; what matters is whether it did what needed doing for that person, in that moment. Writing is the same. It is a solitary act — you sit alone with a blank page — but language is social, and a draft only succeeds against a specific reader.

How it works

Stop picturing an "audience" — a demographic like "professionals" or "students" — and picture the one reader on the other side of the page. Ask what they actually asked for, what decision they are trying to make, what motivated them to click your headline in the first place, and how they stand toward your idea. Three kinds of reader need three different openings: the uninformed reader needs enough background to see the problem; the indifferent reader needs the problem given consequences that reach them; the resistant reader needs their position acknowledged and then gently destabilised.

Why it matters

Form and content can't tell you whether writing works — only a reader can. Aim at an "audience" and you write to no one, hedging toward everyone; aim at a particular reader and every choice gets easier, because you finally have someone to be clear to. Most drafts that underperform don't fail on the sentences; they fail on who was imagined reading them.

The reader is the batter, not the icing

Getting clear on your reader isn't something you do after drafting — the reader is the batter, not the icing on the cake. Because judgments are socially constructed, the structure, conventions, word choice, and references all flow downstream from a specific reading community, so "I'll pick the audience later" kills a piece from the start. Writing for several audiences doesn't excuse you from this; it means more particularity, not less — like a chess master playing several boards at once. And the reader, not you, decides what counts as understanding something better, which is why you have to know where they currently stand before you can take them further.

Study the reader like a grandmaster

The top writers don't treat readers as a faceless "audience"; they study a particular reader the way a chess grandmaster studies an opponent — what they believe, what they doubt, and which words will make them move. Some of those words are universal: but, however, although signal a contrast, and contrast is catnip for a curious brain. But the real leverage is the vocabulary specific to your reader's world — the code words that say "I'm one of you." Most people work to become experts in their field; the ones who win become experts in their reader.

Name the victim

Narrowing isn't losing reach; it's gaining it. When William launched Writer Science he said he helped "writers" — and drowned in mismatched leads: fiction authors, memoirists, poets. The day he rewrote it to "experts who want to turn their knowledge into a book," the messaging sharpened and the right people leaned in, because he was naming their exact pain. Every piece needs a victim: a specific person who's stuck, whose hair is on fire, who thinks "I can't keep doing it like this." As Alex Hormozi puts it, the pain is the pitch — describe a prospect's pain in their own language and they'll trust you have the cure.

Try it

1. Name one reader. What did they ask for, and what decision are they trying to make?
2. Diagnose their stance: uninformed, indifferent, or resistant?
3. Match the opening to the stance — background, consequences, or acknowledgement-then-challenge.

Common pitfalls

Confusing audience with reader and stopping at the demographic. "I'm writing for marketers" tells you nothing about what this marketer resists or wants. The other trap is writing for the friendliest reader in your head; the one who decides your fate is often the indifferent or resistant one.

It's not enough to know your reader and not just your audience. What decisions are they trying to make? What motivated them to click on your headline?

WILLIAM · 7 FIRST-DRAFT MISTAKES · 2025

An audience is a category. A reader is a person deciding whether to keep going.

Drawn from

• William, 7 First-Draft Mistakes I Fix All the Time (Writer Science, 2025).
• William, The Top 1% Think on Paper. Here's How to Do It (Writer Science, 2026) — studying the reader, and code words.
• William, The EXACT Writing System to Make Readers Recommend Your Book (Writer Science, 2025) — the victim, and the pain is the pitch.
• William, I Wish I Knew This Before I Started Writing Online (Writer Science, 2025) — the reader is the batter; readers decide what counts as "better."
• Related: Learn your reader's code words, The writer's draft vs. the reader's draft, Sell the problem, not the topic, The five-part introduction.