Charles Bazerman, an American Author and scholar from the University of California in Santa Barbara, writes a great article about how writing is more than just putting words on a paper. Writing is a way of communicating different emotions, observations and thoughts to readers. Writing is about expressing ideas and creating a “relationship” between reader and writer.
“Sometimes writers will express something deep and personal that could be difficult to share and difficult for the reader to interpret as such a special subject…”
In “Writing Expresses and Shares Meaning to be Reconstructed by the Reader,” from Naming What We Know, Bazerman talks about all the things a writer must do to express what is necessary on paper. What is written on paper is up for the reader to interpret and decide what the writer means. The writer can express things that are real and physical, things that mean something and can construct a message.
Sometimes writers will express something deep and personal that could be difficult to share and difficult for the reader to interpret as such a special subject, making it difficult to express on paper and hope for the correct interpretation. Writers must have the thought process to understand the relationship between reader and writer and how to properly execute ideas.
While reading this article, I learned that there is a kind of relationship built between reader and writer. The writer must come up with ways to express emotions and ideas and it is up to the reader to understand and interpret what is being said in the text.
Bazerman states “While writers can confirm that the written words feel consistent with their state of mind, readers can never read the writer’s mind to confirm they fully share that state of mind.” (22). I find this quote to stick out to me the most about forming the relationship, so to speak, because I have never thought about how what I write down for an audience may mean something to me that is completely different from what the reader can interpret and understand.
Building a relationship as a writer with a reader is a strange concept to grasp. A lot of times the author may never meet their reader and creating a relationship with someone you’ve never met is an interesting thought.
Personally, I think this concept might be difficult to overcome and cause me to really dig into my writing more to go deeper with how I express what I am writing.
I also believe that the more I can begin to let loose and express my thoughts with no fear, the better my writing will be. Allowing the relationships to form between myself as the author and my audience as the readers is an exciting thing and should make writing more fun for me.
