Blogging Day 4: Who is the target audience for your life stories?

Who is the target audience for your life stories?
By Leneé Cobb

An endearing memory on Sequim Bay. Photo by Grandma Lenee

I’m going to write about something we covered in class, something I cover in every class I give: When it comes to your life story (stories,) who is your target audience? The fact that I noticed a fellow blogger, one I enjoy following as a matter of fact, typed the words “target audience” in her blog’s title, and blogging 101’s assignment for day fours subject matter deals with target audience makes the timing pretty sweet for me.

It never fails to amuse me how, when folks attempt to write their life stories down, a great many of them fail to consider their target audience.

Let me ask a few questions, questions you need to know the answers to when writing your life stories.

• What do you want to want to tell?
• Why do you want to tell it?
• How do you want to tell it?
• Who do you want to read it?

Who reads our life stories matters because there are things we would write about that would be okay for an adult to read that would not be appropriate for a ten-year-old. Are we writing for our kids, grand-kids, great grand-kids, or a wider audience? Let’s face it, there are things we don’t want our kids to know . . . all those things we were brought up never to talk about. Sometimes, we might write for no one but ourselves in order, perhaps, to better understand ourselves and/or others.

Yet the world turns.

Why don’t you want your kids to know? There are things that should be kept to ourselves, but there are other things our descendants probably should know. Therefore, what we write within our life stories should be kept circumspect.

Another thing to keep in mind is this: we do not have to put every life story we write in the same book. We retain the option of making books according to reader age groups.

Organizing your life stories according to your target audience can free up your writing flow by allowing you to experiment with a variety of writing styles.

Okay now, what was that assignment for on blogging 101?

Day Four: Identify Your Audience

Time to put your writing caps back on and start honing your blogging focus.
Today’s Assignment: publish a post you’d like your ideal audience member to read, and include a new-to-you element in it.

I’m going to work on that next. I’m a bit baffled about that new element stuff.

A day at Sequim Bay with a couple of granddaughters after watching Elaine Grinnell tell the story about Grandma Crab. Photo by Lenee Cobb

For those who are willing, don’t forget that yes, you too can have some of your life stories recorded on video.Here is a wonderful example of a storyteller—one that’s captured the hearts of everyone she meets, giving the children in our area a tale or two. Her story about Grandma Crab is a favorite of my granddaughters’.

Elaine Grinnelle and Grandma Crab link.

I want my grand-kids to remember the fun we had listening to Elaine tell us about Grandma Crab and the fun we had dancing around my living room with our own little pinchers held in the air while we sang, “Hey I nipsie ey I O, hey ey nipsie ey I O, hey ey nipsie ey I O.”

And then recall our day at the beach.

And keep the circle going by repeating times like this with their own children and grand children . . . times spent with that silly, fun grandma, me.

Have fun sharing your life with others. Don’t forget the kids while they’re kids.

P.S. Thank you, Elaine, for telling your story. By doing so you added immensely to our wonderful memories. It was like you were there with us, even though you never knew us.

That’s the magic of stories.