Comments on: Wednesday Writer’s Workshop: Purpose, or Why Do You Write?

By: byjane

byjane — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:46:45 +0000

Duchess: Joining IA then, are you? I attend the Meetings myself! But–my comment wasn’t about you being a humor writer (perish the thought!) but about humor writers in general. The ones I know put their all into being entertaining–and some of them really are.

By: byjane

byjane — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:43:53 +0000

LizLSB:
The aptness comes from years of trying to beat it into the heads of my writing students. I keep thinking that I will find that one way to say it that they will finally ‘get’. More fool me….

By: Duchess

Duchess — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:37:45 +0000

Oh, I don’t agree! I certainly do not aspire to be a humour blogger. In fact I don’t think I have ever found one so described to be tolerable, let alone engaging.

But you might be right. I am not clear that my theory is working; I am beginning to think that my incorrigible addiction to irony does not work at all over the internet.

By: LizLSB

LizLSB — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:25:18 +0000

Very apt description of purpose, audience, message, and persona. If I could get all of my Creative Writing students to grasps these basics, I would enjoy reading their writing more. Duchess is right about engagement; whether your purpose is to entertain, to convince, or to inform, you must grab the reader’s attention or you’re doomed.

By: byjane

byjane — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:55:33 +0000

Duchess:
Entertaining as a primary purpose in writing is the province of the humor bloggers. That’s different from the issue of engaging one’s audience, which is a whole different ball game (as we Yanks say).

By: Duchess

Duchess — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 07:24:58 +0000

I pretty much think if I can’t manage entertain I should go home. You probably won’t get very far informing or convincing, for example, if you cannot first engage.

By: byjane

byjane — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:53:38 +0000

Lia,
Bingo! The persona of the writer is a function of the Purpose. It’s interesting that the ByJane post left you feeling somewhat insecure, since I was feeling that way myself.

By: byjane

byjane — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:24:25 +0000

Joanna,

Actually, my purpose was to share my feelings about my writing abilities. That post started as, as so many of my ByJane blog posts did, with me being in one place and then writing myself to another. That’s the nature of a lot of blog posts, but it’s not a great way to teach about something, which is what I’m doing with the Wednesday Writer’s Workshops.