Writing as if we are being read

A friend of mine, with my help and guidance, has recently taken up blogging as an outlet for all of the thoughts he has and as a way to tell tales of all of the crazy things that happen in his life. It has been quite enjoyable to help him in this endeavor, if for no other reason than that he is my friend and I enjoy helping for that reason, but is has also reminded me of something that is quite common to see in new blogs. In my own blog, as well as the few blogs I saw in their very early stages, I found that the authors of fledgling blogs often write as if they already have readers, even if they have no reason to think they do. Now, granted in some of the situations where I saw that happen, the authors in question did have reason to think they had readers: Larisa of the Pink Pigtail Inn commented on my first post saying this sounded like the kind of blog she would be interested in reading, my friend has already told a few of his friends (including me) about his blog, and the other blog I saw in its infancy was one written by someone I know through a forum, many of the members of which had told him they'd be interested in reading his blog. However, this is something I have also seen in blogs I discover by finding a post via google, blogs that don't have any comments save for one or two on later posts, yet the authors still write as if they have readers.

I couldn't help but wonder, why is this the case? Why do/did we fledgling bloggers write as if we already have readerships, even if we don't? It could just be a matter of wishful thinking. After all, anyone who writes down their thoughts in a blog wants what they write to be read, even if they only want it on a subconscious level. If that weren't the case, they'd find a less public outlet for their writing. Maybe, since bloggers want to be read, they write as if they are already being read, as if there are already people who are reading what they write, since they want it to be the case. After all, having a readership isn't just about receiving comments, but it's also about knowing that people are reading what you write. Without something like Google analytics or the stats tab at the top of blogger (which kind of kills the illusion I'm about to talk about), it's easy to imagine that there are people reading your blog when there really aren't, and thus it's easy for bloggers to write as if someone is reading what they are writing.

It could also be a practical choice. If someone happens upon a blog by chance, what's going to make them more likely to stay and read what the author has to say: a post that actually acknowledges the reader's existence, or a post lamenting about how the blog has no readers? As Allison Robert of WoW Insider says, "The one unshakeable rule I've learned about blogging in general is this: people hate whining." A blog author whining about not having readers would be no exception, so it's easy to imagine how a post written as if no one is reading the author's blog could turn off potential readers. This might not matter in the early days of a blog when no one is reading what's being written, but this is also an issue of habit. If someone blogs for long enough, they will usually accrue readers somehow, and its easier to keep those readers if you are in the habit of writing posts that are inviting to those who find your blog, rather than posts telling those readers they don't exist.

But why not take the middle ground? Why not neither acknowledge those imaginary readers nor write as if they don't exist? Well, as you can tell by the way I am writing this post (what with asking questions as introductions to my points and all), that's quite hard to do. Though it may be bad form to acknowledge the existence of a reader in formal writing, in blog writing, the existence of a reader is integral to the writing style. It's hard to pin down exactly what constitutes the general style of blog writing, but if a set of guidelines were written up to describe how blog posts can best be written, they would include acknowledging the reader in the post. Perhaps new authors who write as if they already have audiences have picked up on that fact and are just copying what they have noticed on other blogs when writing in their own blog.

In my own case, I think it was a combination of the first and third possibility that made me write as if I had readers when I very well might not have. For those of you who are bloggers, did you engage in this habit too when you started writing? If so, what motivated you to do so?