How do you write what people actually want to read?
A WordPress writing prompt from a few days ago posed a question that plagues every blogger at some point: How do you write what people want to read?
If you run a blog, you know the cycle. You spend hours pouring your soul into an essay you’re convinced is comedic gold or deeply profound, hit publish, and watch the digital tumbleweeds blow past. Meanwhile, a low-effort listicle you jotted down between sips of coffee suddenly drives all your traffic.
We have all been there and it begs the question: Are we chasing an audience that does not exist, or are we just doing this all wrong?
The Stats Don’t Make Sense (And That’s Okay)
I’m currently on Day 24 of a 30-day writing challenge. It’s been an exercise in pushing past creative blocks, figuring out my niche, and obsessively checking post metrics to see what lands.
The verdict? Human attention is completely unpredictable.
Case in point:
- I wrote a deep-dive critical analysis arguing why modern culture desperately needs to bring back Jerry Springer-caliber daytime talk shows. I thought it was witty, culturally relevant, and sharp. Result: Crickets. Barely a like, barely a hit.
- I posted a quick, candid breakdown of my top five everyday apps. Result: Solid traffic, instant clicks.
- I drafted a comedic story about an overdramatic run-in at the grocery store, assuming humor would lead the charge. Instead, my post ranking my favorite Pokémon companions blew it out of the water.
If you try to reverse-engineer what strangers on the internet want on any given Tuesday, you’ll drive yourself mad. You can’t predict what will click, because readers rarely know what they want until it’s in front of them.
The Danger of Writing Only for the Clicks
If I only wrote what “sells,” my blog would turn into an endless feed of trashy erotica overnight. Don’t get me wrong—I love writing steamy, unapologetic romance. There is genuine art and fun in crafting indulgent drama where everyone gets exactly what they want.
But writers are multifaceted. Sometimes I want to write erotica; sometimes I want to write speculative sci-fi about women defying convention; sometimes I want to break down astrology as character analysis rather than mystical fortune-telling.
When you constrain your voice solely to capture mass appeal, you strip out the very friction that makes writing compelling. The moment you start writing exclusively for an imaginary audience’s approval, you kill the curiosity that brought you to the page in the first place.
The Toni Morrison Rule: Fill the Void
Toni Morrison offered what remains the best writing advice ever recorded:
“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”
Seasoned writers and mentors have echoed this for decades. Your job as a writer isn’t to survey the market, build a demographic profile, and pander to it. Your job is to look at the cultural landscape, identify what feels missing, and write that exact piece into existence.
- Write the piece that makes you laugh out loud while drafting it.
- Write a love letter to your younger self that it felt terrifying to put on paper.
- Write the raw, emotional witness to an everyday event that nobody else bothered to document.
When I posted a quiet, vulnerable piece reflecting on personal self-worth, it didn’t get thousands of views—but a reader reached out to say it was deeply caring, spot-on, and gave them comfort right when they needed it. That single connection infinitely holds more weight than a dozen empty clicks on a trendy topic.
Write with Abundance
There are over eight billion people on this planet. Your writing is not meant for all of them. It isn’t even meant for 1% of them.
Writing requires an abundance mindset:
- The wrong readers will scroll past. Let them.
- The right readers will find resonance. When you write with genuine specificity and voice, the people who share your wavelength will eventually track down your work. They will recognize the humor, feel the emotion, and appreciate the perspective.
Your responsibility isn’t to figure out what people want to read. Your responsibility is to write, edit, and put something authentic into the world. The audience doesn’t know what they’re missing until you give it to them.
Over to you: Have you ever published something you were certain would flop, only for it to resonate widely—or vice versa? How do you balance writing for yourself versus writing for your readers?
Until Next Time,
Che Michelle
