Writing's Key Component

Do you write to entertain? To educate? To persuade? Or to express yourself? These are all legitimate, even noble goals. But if you want to have readers there is a more important goal that must underlie any other. That is, writing to communicate. No one entertains or educates unless he or she can convey something interesting to other people. No one gets rich from writing unless they can convey that interesting thing to large numbers of people. The transmission of ideas and emotions is basic to all writing.

It seems to me that if you want to be read then your primary purpose must be to get your point across, whatever that point may be. Some writers dress up their points with metaphorical language. Other's bury their points under layers of symbolism and subtlety. Others write in prose that is translucent, under which the meaning lies like bones under an X-ray. Any of these can be effective, although for myself I tend to strive for the first and the last rather than the middle. But ultimately no approach matters unless the reader thinks or feels that thing which you wanted him or her to think or feel.

That's my point.