#this post is actually abt wtnv's parade day which ive been thinking about a lot

[elftwink]

i do agree with the writing advice “write for yourself” and i personally am always self-indulgent in my writing before i am anything else— idk how i’d write anything if i didn’t indulge myself, since that is what storytelling is. but i do wish we put more weight on our audience; not pleasing them (again, you won’t please everyone and that’s just a fact of life, within writing and without it), but just.... knowing they’re there. stories don’t— can’t— exist in a vacuum. they’re inherently connective, social things, the way we are inherently social, connected beings. a story doesn’t Exist until you tell it to someone, really. before that it’s an idea or a plan, a thought train idling at a station. a draft. it’s a secret, even, if you’ve put in the work and made a novel that you only show to yourself. it becomes a story when it’s shared. 

and i think some of the best stories are the ones that know this. that are acutely aware that what is being written also has to be read— that aren’t assuming that you personally will like it or even finish it, but that know that someone, somewhere, is hearing it. do you know when you read a story and it knows you’re there? that understands, and makes you understand —maybe with a joke, or a wink and a nod, or a call to action, or a moral, or a direct address if the medium allows for it— that fiction is and always has been a two way street? that you, the reader, the watcher, the recipient, the listener, do not take a passive role in the storytelling process. stories that leave room for you, that include you in them.

there’s something incredibly powerful about stories like that. i am heard, therefore i am. i think in a way, most stories are like that. most stories want to be heard. but there’s a specific kind that knows it’s being heard instead of just wanting it, and that’s really something.

anyway write your stories down and show them to people. they don’t have to be, and they probably shouldn’t be, FOR those people. but the fact that they’re there is something you should let into your works, cause there’s no point in telling stories at all if no one gets to listen to them.