Writing is a constant skill. Every time a person sits down to write anything, be it for work, or school, or out of personal passion, the skill of writing is being developed. Thus, with the constant development of writing, there exists as well constant unwritten guidelines that are being followed as well. For example, when writing, the writer always has a certain audience in mind, be it a schoolteacher, a boss, a family member, or just a friend. Even writing in a personal journal, away from others’ eyes, has the author themselves as an audience. Even now, this is being written with an academic audience in mind. Thus, the idea that it is possible to write in general is not only a destructive idea, it is just plain wrong. All writing is specialized, tailored to its specific audience.  Works of fiction may bend or break writing conventions in order to make the reader feel a certain way while reading, such as the way Roald Dahl went about making up words and playing with sentence structure, while academic works strictly adhere to the rules of grammar. With an audience in mind, the way a person writes is influenced from the very beginning.

Because there is no such thing as writing in general, all writing must be tailored to each individual situation, not merely an audience. Works of fiction can simply make situations up, but a work of non-fiction must be well-researched, accurate, and cited properly. It’s important to remember this because writing is not merely about the audience, but the intent of what the author is trying to push. Trying to structure a work of fiction while following the rules of writing an essay will not work, likewise, writing an essay while treating it like a piece of fiction will not work either. Thus, it is important in every writing situation to take a step to first consider why one is writing, what the intended audience is, and what one is trying to accomplish. These seem like common knowledge, but they are important building blocks for any writing exercise. Like a building on soft ground cannot stand without a proper foundation, any work of writing cannot stand without an understanding of what it is trying to accomplish. Therefore, sitting down and simply trying to write something people will like without understanding the audience is doomed to end in failure. It is as the old saying goes: “If you make something for everyone, you make something for no-one.”

This is why the idea of writing in general is, as Elizabeth Wardle says in her essay You Can Learn to Write in General, a “dangerous idea that needs to die (Wardle, 31).” It breeds the misconception that one technique of doing something can be applied to everything, which it cannot, like attempting to use a hammer as a screwdriver. The techniques for writing are specialized for different situations, no one technique can be broadly applied to all forms of writing.

This means that, instead of the question being “how can I write in general?” The question should instead be “what techniques can I learn to help me better write in certain situations?” The first step, naturally, is recognizing that every situation is expectant of different standards of quality. For example, the authors of the book Worlds Apart: Acting and Writing in Academic and Workplace Contexts make the example that when a professor grades and adds comments to an essay, those comments are typically used to justify the docking or addition of points to that grade, rather than criticisms and reworking that would be used in the workplace (Dias et al., 226). While techniques like this are used for similar purposes, it is important to remember that the contexts in which they are used are vastly different. Likewise, a deliberate stylistic choice in one work of writing such as a quote has one meaning in fiction, showing the character in the act of speaking, a quotation in an academic work implies that the ideas the author is pulling is not their own. Thus, while one work may get away without having to cite for quotations, the other work cannot.

Therefore, it is important to remember this: Writing in general does not and potentially cannot exist. What does exist however, is the ability to tool certain conventions of writing to different purposes. However, no one device can be used for all avenues of writing. Thus, it is the responsibility of the author to keep in mind who they are writing for, what they are trying to accomplish, and then choose the strategies and devices that work best for the particular situation. With that in mind, while it may not be possible to write in general, it is possible to draw on the experience one has had in writing and make the best educated guess on what works for the situation at hand. While it may not result in a perfect work, it will result in a work that is best tooled for the subject matter and audience.

Works Cited

Wardle, Elizabeth. “You Can Learn to Write in General.” Ball, Cheryl E. and Drew M. Loewe. Bad Ideas About Writing. 2017. 30-33. Document.

Par‚, A., Medway, P., Freedman, A., & Dias, P. (2013). Worlds Apart: Acting and Writing in Academic and Workplace Contexts. New York, NY: Routledge.