“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
A few years ago, I made a presentation to a high school class about the importance of audience for writers and asked a few questions. Would you write a paper for your English teacher in the same way you might write an ad to persuade your classmates to vote for you for class president? Would you write a letter seeking a job in the same way you would write an email or text to a friend?
I used the famous opening above from Charles Dickens’ classic, A Tale of Two Cities. It’s verbose by today’s standards. Compare the 120 words in this long, unbroken sentence to the 140 characters we try to keep our “stories” to on Twitter. Dickens himself might think twice about trying to hook readers with such a sentence if he were writing in the 21st century.
For those who love the English language and appreciate a well-turned phrase, that opening sentence might still hit all the right notes. By a show of hands, about half the class I visited indicated they liked the passage. For others, it was simply too long, and the central idea could have been expressed with more simple word choices.
It’s important to know whom you’re writing for. Should you stick to the King’s English? That might sound a little stilted for some audiences and platforms. Likewise, too breezy an approach can be a problem in some contexts.
Audience also affects the choice of information and interviews to include. Too often, especially in corporate communications, the focus is on what the corporation wants to convey rather than what the audience wants or needs to know. This is where a good writer or editor who’s a step removed from the message can help make that message resonate with readers, by tailoring the language and information to appeal to the intended audience.