That Friend

I am sure that more people read this blog than I know about, and more read it than comment. However, I distrust statistics and referrals and in any case I carry on making these blog entries with only a few people in mind. This is actually good practice. Radio presenters talk to one person not a mass of people, and marketing should be aimed at specific people, even phantom friends as one of the presenters put it a few weeks back at the Unitarian publicity weekend at the Unitarian Nightingale Centre.

It is about writing for apparent specific needs and so here are the building blocks for phantom or other friends, real or imagined (below - "they" means one person each time):

What is he or she called?
How do they see themselves?
What do they look like?
What do they actually do?
What would they like to do?
What are their needs?
Age?
Who do they love or desire?
What do they love (including obsessions)?
What sort of religion, if any?
What else do they believe?
What sort of politics, if interested?
What do they criticise?
Whom do they criticise?
Who are their friends?
Whom do they avoid?
How old do they act?
What labelling would they avoid?
Where is home?
Where do they work in any sense?
Where did or do they learn?
What do they conserve?
What do they want to change?
Ambitious or not?
What gives pleasure?
What gives pain?

Getting a picture of them alters what you write about. It is still your own knowledge and interest - your own product - but the aim is the other person, either real or imagined.

Having blogged a while I can answer the above questions about people: some I can answer fully, but I can answer some in part only and then I make the rest up. Funnily enough, I know more about females than about males. They tell you so much more. However, you can all answer these questions about me, by reading what I have put here and my website. But do you write with me in mind?