Reader Focus Quotes

You know, my problem with most screenwriting is it is a blueprint. It's like they're afraid to write the damn thing. And I'm a writer. That's what I do. I want it to be written. I want it to work on the page first and foremost. So when I'm writing the script, I'm not thinking about the viewer watching the movie. I'm thinking about the reader reading the script.

Many fiction writers write for the critics or for themselves; they forget the common reader. I never do. I don't think journalism clashes with my fiction; on the contrary, it helps enormously.

The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention.

Everything I publish is for my readers.

I always feel that I am writing for somebody who is bright but impatient. Someone who doesn't have unlimited time. That is my sense of the reader. So I have got to get to the point.

Respect and love your readers. Write for the reader.

I wish my prose to be transparent—I don't want the reader to stumble over me; I want him to look through what I'm saying to what I'm describing. I don't want him ever to say, Oh, goodness, how nicely written this is. That would be a failure.

Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person-a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

Digression is my passion. I love telling the main stories, but in some ways, what I love most is using those narratives as a way of stringing together the interesting stories that people have kind of forgotten, and that are kind of surprising. The problem is, how do you pare stories away so that the book doesn't become a distracting jumble of material, and readers lose focus? In my experience, there's really only one way to do that. I pack it all in with the rough draft, then count on myself and my trusted readers to tell me what's good and what's not good.

I think you become a writer when you stop writing for yourself or your teachers and start thinking about readers.

The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it's about us, it's about the reader.

Mainly, I try not to think about my readers as I write - I just think of my characters and myself - If they're interesting to me, my hope is that they'll be interesting to others as well.

I'm very aware how many distractions the reader has in life today, how many good reasons there are to put the book down.

I've never thought about the ages of my readers.

I simply write with an intelligent reader in mind. I don't think about how old they are.

My focus is on the reader and that the poet's job is not to inspire himself or herself. The poet's job is to inspire some future reader.

I made a decision to write for my readers, not to try to find more readers for my writing.

I think that you have to keep the reader front and centre if you're going to write something that people are going to love and be entertained by.

It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing.