A Writer’s Kiss
How To Connect With Readers
Why Write?
Why are you writing?
For the money? Or for the sheer joy of it?
Does your love for the written word entice you enough to keep you writing even if the money doesn’t come? Even if you don’t make a dime from it? Even if you have to find another way to actually make a living, and write as a hobby?
Again, why are you writing?
Do you really want to form a relationship with your reader?
Canoodle with someone who reads and actually responds to what you have to say?
Do you really desire to write … write your heart out … write until your fingers bleed? Especially when there is a glut of writing out there … much of which is never read.
For readers are bombarded daily. Hundreds of messages hit their inbox.
And as the late Ted Nicholas once said, “99% of all writing appeals just to the mind. When you read it, you are not touched emotionally.” Thus, you are not moved to respond at all, much less activated to take action.
Even though the writers of those messages are constantly advised to entice readers into submission. To get them in the mood. In the mood to buy what we are promoting. For their own good. For their better health. Their wellness. Their wealth.
Yet we writers really do think we are putting all our energy into ‘building relationships.’
Without realizing the truth.
Is Your Writing Substantial Relationship Building Material?
The truth is … most of our writing isn’t substantial relationship building material.
In today’s society, writing often becomes just another commodity. And poor quality commodities, at that.
For many just write what they think others want to hear. Or, worse yet, write what they actually want to hear themselves.
For they think that writing is just a skill to be learned. A skill to be employed like any skill — used to support the kind of life they desire to live.
Some call that ‘the writer’s life.’
Yet there is more to the ‘real writer’s life’ than that. Because the real writer’s life is the life of an artist … the life of someone who does what they do for the sheer love of doing it.
And it takes an artist’s love to build true relationships with your readers. For the reality is …
it takes two to have a relationship.
Two people who are ‘in sync’ with each other. Two people who are connecting. Enjoying each other’s company. Bonding.
So the failure to build good relationships with our readers isn’t really our fault.
For writers don’t always get to experience how the reader actually feels. Don’t often even get to experience the true connection between writer and reader.
In fact, many writers don’t even realize that something is missing in their relationships with readers.
What is Missing in Writer/Reader Relationships?
In today’s commoditized society, many writers write like Justin Matisse describes in the movie Hope Floats.
In the movie, Justin (Harry Connick, Jr.) tells Bernie (Sandra Bullock). “you’re talking about the American Dream. You find something that you love, and then you twist it and torture it, trying to find a way to make money at it. You spend a lifetime doing that. And at the end you can’t find a trace of what you started out loving.”
So, many writers end up hating what they once loved. They start hating writing.
If you are like many would-be writers, you could begin to wish you had never thought about becoming a writer.
You could even end up despising yourself. Thinking you’re no good. Thinking you never should have tried.
And you start blaming yourself for something that is not your fault. For no one told you that just trying to write could be so hazardous.
And you don’t even realize your attitude is being transmitted to your reader. You don’t realize that what you never say is being heard loud and clear.
So readers disconnect. And the only thing you experience is the noise of a busy internet rushing past you, totally disregarding anything you had to say.
So you give up. You quit. You stop posting.
Yet, no one should have to give up a dream.
No one should throw in the towel and quit writing when it was once a deeply held desire that spoke to you. A dream that aroused visions of being the number one writer of the year. A dream of writing a best seller. A dream of being who you really wanted to be …
a real writer …
someone who loves writing and is good at it.
Giving Your Reader A Scintillating Kiss
For you can learn the basics of good writing. Writing that scintillates, titillates, teases. Words urging readers to succor themselves by satisfying the arousal of their desire to buy something.
Messages that often do, in fact, get a result.
Because, whether they realize it or not, what readers really seek is that moment when
the writer leans in, just a little … murmurs something enticing and moving in their ear … and bends down even closer …
giving them a KISS … by
Kindling Intrigue with Sensual Sentences.
Because their words capture readers into their net and then burn into their brave little hearts enamoring words. Like the words of a good song. Catching readers’ hearts with its rhythm. Making readers linger with longing with each phrase.
Simply because every reader is a romantic at heart.
Readers love writers who dally with their emotions. They love writers who delve into the deep darkness of one’s soul, raise questions that arouse their desire to know more.
They love writers who encourage them to cavort freely with ideas that awaken their dreams and put a gleam in their eye and a song in their heart.
Yet readers never realize the trap they are stepping into …
the trap of teary responses to arousing punchlines.
Who Is Actually Benefiting?
Because it is a trap readers actually enjoy falling into.
Unless, as all too often happens, the writer disappoints the reader.
By getting too cocky.
Being too sure of themselves about what they think will knock reader’s socks off.
For readers are like Jenny.
“You’ve got to woo me,“ Jenny (Jennifer Garner) told Connor Mead (Matthew McConaughey) in the movie Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, “The wooing is actually not for my benefit.”
Huh?
Who’s really benefiting then? you ask.
A natural question.
We are advised to write for the benefit of the reader. To supply their wants and needs. To offer readers our help.
When the truth is, we put all our energy into what we think is ‘building a relationship’ …
because we expect that relationship to flourish.
We expect that relationship to grow into something that brings us all our hopes come true. A relationship that gives us ‘the good life’ FOREVER.
But we seldom really admit that truth.
And then wonder why the relationship doesn’t work.
What Comes From The Heart …
We fail to see why …
Fail to see what actually causes the two in the relationship to often misconnect.
For all too often one of us (if not both) … and usually it’s you, the writer … isn’t really enjoying what she’s doing.
For as Ted Nicholas also once said “the most powerful secret of communication …. [is] what comes from the heart goes to the heart.”
Real writers write for the pure joy of what they are doing. And the joy is doubled when they discover their readers experience that joy they have put into words.
For that sense of joy is transferred to the reader and is exactly what forms the bond between reader and writer.
It is a writer’s joy in what she has written that builds rapport with her readers.
Ted continued, saying: “What moves people to take action of any kind involves human emotion.” Emotional rapport connects readers to a writer. And inspires readers to comment and share. Or email. Or actually send the writer a letter.
Then the writer knows for sure that she has been heard.
Knows that her words have been experienced.
Knows that she has been understood.
Knows her words mean something.
To someone.
Someone besides herself.
For she has connected.
Transactions Or Relationships?
Every writer makes her choice.
For writing is about stories … stories where the writer either selects transactions over the relationship by ignoring emotions and suffocating … choking the life out of her stories, and her readers.
Or stories that start a turnaround of our relationships by igniting and escalating the significance of the relationship …
With inspiring emotional smooches …
with imaginative escapades of suggestion.
Writing stories where words flow in a rhythmic pattern, much like a melody, so she connects in a way that only lovers of sensual words, ideas, and thoughts emotionally connect.
Creating a real relationship.
A lasting connection.
For when two people bond in such a manner …
lives are changed.
Because the life of the reader will never be the same as it once was … before those words were read.
Just as the life of the writer was changed by the very writing of those immortal words.
The True Writer’s Life
The true writer’s life
is when the skill of writing becomes the art of writing …
and the writer’s life becomes the art of living.
Because when you get good at writing, when you become so skilled your reader bonds with what you are saying …
you are creating art.
You are awakening the reader’s transformation.
You are, in effect, saying to the reader: “Join me! Journey to a new, exciting life.”
And your readers won’t have to think twice. Your readers will be moved by the kiss of your words … words which capture their hearts. Words which capture through the kaleidoscope of intrigue by the very sentence structure that is building the relationship.
Words and sentences that ebb and flow with the rhythm of the moonlight of one’s soul …
As short, simple, and concise sentences intermingle with longer, complex and more informative sentences …
And they each dance into your reader’s hearts.
Then their essence is remembered forever.
Why You Write
So, are you enjoying what you are doing?
Are you enjoying stringing words together in ways that ignite fires of emotion in your readers?
Are you enjoying the relationship building process? The process of moving people emotionally in order to help them instead of just helping yourself?
Are you enjoying the feeling of being a good writer?
Someone who knows how to actually talk to others and connect with them emotionally to help them solve their problems?
Are you enjoying the experience of coupling with another human being through words … Words which form a lasting bond between you and your reader?
If not, why bother?
Is money really worth it?
Especially when you can, instead, give your reader a moment of ecstasy, the thrill of a fever-inducing kiss that you both can savor and relish as long as you live.