Write Like You're Writing to One Person (Because You Are)
When I was a magazine journalist, I had a trick. Before I started writing a feature, I'd pick one person I knew, someone specific, and I'd write the whole thing as if I were explaining it to them over dinner. My friend Sarah for lifestyle pieces. My college roommate Dev for anything tech. My mom for everything else, because if my mom couldn't follow it, it was too complicated.
The trick worked because it solved the biggest problem in writing: the audience abstraction. The moment you start writing for "our target audience" or "decision-makers aged 35-55" or "Technical Tara," something terrible happens. Your voice changes. You go from being a human talking to another human to being a corporate entity addressing a demographic. And nobody, in the history of reading, has ever enjoyed being addressed as a demographic.
The audience of one
Seth Godin writes his blog posts for one person. Not an audience of millions. One person. And somehow, because of that, millions of people feel like he's talking directly to them. That's not a paradox. That's just how good writing works.
When you write for everyone, you write for no one. The voice becomes generic. The examples become abstract. The energy becomes the marketing equivalent of elevator music, inoffensive and completely forgettable.
When you write for one person, you make specific choices. You use examples they'd understand. You anticipate the objection they'd raise. You use the words they'd use. And specificity, it turns out, is the thing that makes writing feel universal.
Writing for everyone is writing for no one. Writing for one person is how you end up reaching everyone.
The dinner party test
I use this in workshops all the time and people always look at me like I've told them something too simple to be useful. But here it is: before you write, imagine you're at a dinner party. The person sitting next to you asks you about the topic you're about to write about. What would you say?
Not what would you publish. What would you say, out loud, to a real person who's being polite enough to ask?
You'd probably start with a story. You'd use simple words. You'd get to the point because you can see their eyes and you know when you're losing them. You'd be warm and specific and maybe a little funny because that's how humans communicate when they're not hiding behind a brand voice guide.
That thing you'd say at the dinner party? That's your first draft.
My person
These days, when I write about content strategy, I write for my friend Anita. Anita runs content at a Series B startup. She's smart, she's busy, she's slightly overwhelmed, and she's tired of reading thought leadership that's neither thoughtful nor leading anywhere.
When I'm tempted to write something jargony or abstract, I think of Anita reading it on her phone in the back of an Uber between meetings. Would she keep reading? Would she screenshot it and send it to her team? Would she text me and say "this was really useful" or would she text me and say "this sounds like a LinkedIn post"?
The LinkedIn post text is devastating, by the way. Anita does not hold back.
Having Anita in my head makes me a better writer. Not because I'm trying to impress her. Because I'm trying to be useful to her. And the shift from "impressive" to "useful" changes everything about how you write.
Why personas don't work (for this)
I know what you're thinking. "Priya, isn't this just a persona? We already have personas." No. It's different, and the difference matters.
A persona is a composite. "Sarah, 38, VP of Marketing, two kids, drives a Subaru, pain points include budget constraints and attribution modeling." Sarah isn't real. Sarah was assembled from survey data and a brainstorming session. Sarah has no personality. Sarah has demographics.
I'm talking about a real person. Someone you actually know. Someone whose specific reactions you can predict because you've had actual conversations with them. The difference between writing for Persona Sarah and writing for Real Anita is the difference between talking to a cardboard cutout and talking to a human.
One makes you stiff. The other makes you real.
How to find your person
Think of someone who represents your audience but who you also genuinely like. This is important. You have to like them, because writing for someone you like makes your voice warmer and more generous. You lean in instead of performing.
They should be someone who:
- Is smart but not an expert in your exact niche
- Has limited time and low tolerance for fluff
- Would tell you honestly if something you wrote was boring
- You'd actually want to have dinner with
Once you have that person, write everything to them. Every blog post. Every email. Every landing page. Keep their face in your mind as you type.
Ann Handley talks about writing with empathy, about putting yourself in the reader's shoes. Having a specific person makes that concrete instead of abstract. You're not imagining generic shoes. You're imagining Anita's shoes, which are usually those sensible ankle boots that look good but can handle a New York sidewalk.
The secret to writing that resonates with thousands is writing for one person you actually care about.
A small experiment
Take something you wrote recently. An email, a blog post, a piece of marketing copy. Now rewrite the first paragraph as if you were explaining it to a friend over coffee.
I'm willing to bet the rewrite is shorter, clearer, warmer, and more interesting. That's not because you suddenly became a better writer. It's because you stopped writing for "an audience" and started writing for a person.
That's the whole trick. It's embarrassingly simple. But simple isn't the same as easy, and easy isn't the same as common. Most content in the world is written for audiences, not people. Be the exception.
Write for one person. Mean it. Watch what happens.