Why would you consider an audience that needs your information as friendly? I would consider this kind of audience that is going to break down everything you present them as more hostile than those who are reading for pleasure. The people who read for pleasure might be a little disappointed by your writing, but they can stop at anytime with no harm done. [Large Edit for the nonsensical post here from last night]
That's all kinds of issues. ISSUE 1: Your audience reads a lot from you. If you come at it from a perspective of them not wanting it, they won't want it. Horses can smell fear. ISSUE 2: You're actively attempting to shove it down their throats. You decide they don't want the detail, and you ramrod it anyway. ISSUE 3: Your job is to make them want it. That's the "words sell themselves" aspect. Sure. But which one does the audience want? If you don't know that going in you're in for a rough time. If it were true you wouldn't need to be told. Not only would you know, you'd get in the habit of deliberately not doing that because you would find it was a very lonely place. Remember that bit about "feeling they don't want it?" You need to push through that. And then you need to understand when it's not working and why. "Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music for longer than they would ordinarily." - David Byrne They're also not your audience. They never have been. The response of anyone who has ever changed your diaper or made you chicken soup is wholly and completely irrelevant to your art. Quit worrying about whether or not your family doesn't provide you honest feedback - they can't. They never will. DUDE. I am the king of the self-referential non-sequitur. I mean, look at this shit. Then try...harder. I can't say this any clearer: you don't need a strong opinion, you need an interesting opinion. Know what I know fuckall about? Chemistry. Know what subject I had the hardest time with in college? Chemistry. Know what Derek Lowe mostly writes about? Chemistry. Know who is just about my favorite writer on the Internet? Derek Lowe. Derek Lowe could write about cell mitosis and I'd be hanging on the edge of my seat. This is a guy who takes something I'm not keenly interested in and makes me keenly interested in it. In fact, here he is making phenotypic screening (!?) interesting. Is it as interesting as "things that blow up?" No, because explosions liven up any conversation (friend of mine coined a law that we named after him: "any movie can be improved by adding lesbians and an exploding helicopter"). But damn. He sure gets close. Correct. But you can make an assessment and push hard in that direction. You'll turn some of them off, but most of them will appreciate it more than whatever cautious approach you feel is warranted. They want to be informed (friendly audience). They want to be entertained (hostile audience). Mostly they want to be informed and entertained (every audience). If you come at it from a standpoint that they don't want any of this from you, your prediction will morph, Cassandra-like, into truth. Sure. But they often want their opinion affirmed via trial-by-fire. That's why satire exists. There's more to it than this, and also less. But setting off from a standpoint of I'm not good enough and they don't want to hear from me is the quickest shortcut to self-fulfilling prophecy I know of.I will give my audience details, but in most cases, I feel that they don't want it. That may be a confidence issue.
There are stories that need a set-up and there are stories that need a one-liner. I can give either one for any story I want to tell.
I've been told that I can command any conversation I want to. The people that tell me this are biased.
I have information to convey; I have themes that I would love for people to understand and relate to.
I would like to be listened to for the quality of my information rather than the timing and rarity of my speaking, but that's not the case.
I love the people that love me, but they are too nice to me.
The only thing that I can say to you is that you often present arguments and I present anecdotes.
I know that you tell stories (more often than I do, at least online), but stories and anecdotes are all I can supply in an interesting manner.
I don't have very strong opinions on factual matters, and I am not well versed on subjects other than geotechnical engineering.
This is all drunk rambling (and that's a cop out), but I can't ever absolutely know my audience.
I would like to, but most of the time, they don't want my information, they don't care about my experiences or opinion, and they wouldn't like to.
The want their own opinion affirmed and so they want to be a friendly audience.
Sorry, it looks like I edited my last comment while you were writing this one, but I think you captured and quoted most of it anyways. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me this morning, so I took it off. Thanks for the response though, you dug at parts that I find true about that post in any state I'm in. When I said that I command conversations, I don't think that I put that in the right way. I don't speak as often as a lot of people, but I've been told that when I do, my words have a bit more gravity than I intended. A large part of the way that I communicate verbally is the way that I present myself, and not necessarily the way that I present my ideas. This doesn't lend itself well to writing, and it is something that I need to work on. I understand the difference you're making between friendly and hostile now, I'm just not sure that those are the terms that I would use for the audiences you are describing. It doesn't matter what we call them, that's just where the confusion came from. And you make a great point about "interesting" rather than "strong" opinions when presenting an argument. It's just that "interesting" is a strange combination of substance and presentation that can be difficult for anyone to concoct over text to strangers. You're right though, and I think I'm going to spend more time trying to write anything rather than bouncing around just reading and wishing I could write as well as I would like. Also, I would really like to know your lesbian/copter-splosion friend's nick-name if you don't mind sharing it.