How do you write what people actually want to read?
If I knew exactly how to write what people actually want to read, I suspect a lot more people would be reading this.
That seems like the obvious place to start.
The word “actually” does a lot of work in this question. It suggests that writers spend a considerable amount of time producing things people don’t want to read, which, judging by the internet, is probably true.
The problem is that people want to read all kinds of things. Some people want breaking news. Some want celebrity gossip. Some want recipes that somehow require 1,800 words about somebody’s grandmother before getting to the ingredients. Some want detailed reviews of bourbon they’ll never buy. Some apparently want to argue with strangers about college football at two in the morning.
There’s an audience for almost everything.
So I don’t think the secret is figuring out exactly what everyone wants to read. That’s impossible. If you try to write for everyone, you’ll probably end up writing for nobody.
I think the better approach is to write about something you genuinely care about and then respect the reader enough to make it worth their time. Get to the point. Tell a good story. Have something to say. Don’t use 500 words when 200 will do.
And, whenever possible, sound like an actual human being.
That’s becoming more important than ever.
I’ve written about faith, family, football, bourbon, teaching, memories and whatever random thought happened to wander into my head that day. Some posts get more attention than others. Sometimes the thing I spend an hour writing disappears quietly into the internet, while something I dashed off in 15 minutes gets read and shared.
I’ve learned not to pretend I understand why. Maybe that’s the real answer. You can’t always know what people actually want to read. You can only write something you’d want to read yourself, make it as good as you can, and hope somebody else feels the same way.
And if that doesn’t work, apparently there’s always celebrity gossip.
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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
I think you said it all. Writing for what people want to read is quite difficult, taking into account the vast genre of subjects out there. Like yourself, I write from the heart, and sometimes I never know if my content will get any traction at all. I myself am always scrolling through stories, pick one that I find interesting and read it or start anyway, but sometimes, I quit about half way.
Not easy to decipher what anyone wants to read. Or where your audience “actually” is. It’s like food in many ways. How often have we decided what we want to eat and by the time it’s cooked, we don’t fancy it at all.
Do we select a genre like crime, because it’s popular? But then the range and scope of crime is vast. The choice is massive, so we then have to ponder how we can make our crime story stand out. If we read crime, are we so influenced that ours becomes a copycat. For me I have to start with a plot, characters and story that feels comfortable. It has to be something that I want to write.
They say “build and they will come”, and you could say write and they will read”. Maybe we need to ask the audience and then write what they want.
But then again is that like asking the couple on the next table what they have selected on the menu and going for the same choice. Or do you stick to the recommendations of the waiter/waitress even if you don’t like the dish.
It’s a conundrum where there’s no right or wrong answer. But it makes you think.