Here’s the exciting thing about writing from this mindset of a storyteller: we not only get to choose who we are as the storyteller, but we get to choose who we tell that story to.

Say I want to tell you the story about playing polo in Argentina. First, who will tell it? I want to stress the manliness of it. Steaks, wine, mounting horses. So I can imagine I’m Hemmingway, sipping on an old fashion and telling you this story. Second, who will I tell this story to? Well, I want to wonder and awe over the horses and the beautiful grass field and how I’m out in the middle of Argentina, my stomach is filled with empanadas, and I’m riding an animal while swinging a club at a ball. So to stress that awe, I imagine that I’m telling this story to a youngster who will find that interesting.

Now from that space, I write.

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I’ve read countless times that you should know your audience before you start writing, and every time I ignored this advice. I thought it was to sell books. I thought it was to write towards a genre that has a demand, instead of just writing the story that’s in you. But now I realize it’s for a much deeper reason. It’s to express the story to its fullest.