Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

If there’s one thing worse than a narcissist, it’s a narcissistic writer

10.24.2017 by David Murray // Leave a Comment

A writer addresses readers the way they read: one by one.

One on a park bench, one in a bar.

One reading out of curiosity, one out of boredom.

One a fan and one a skeptic.

There are no readers. There is only one (and one and one).

Narcissistic writers address readers as the faceless mob they imagine you as.

Narcissistic writers fail the simplest test of empathetic imagination required to recall that every reader reads alone—from a solitary and silent room with a theme emblazoned on the door, "There will never be another me." (My writer dad taught me that.)

A narcissist habitually writes to "readers," plural, as "you all," and addresses them, "Good morning, everyone."

Not sensing, incredibly, that being addressed as a group annoys a woman or a man as surely as a misspelled surname, and more deeply.

It annoys me deeply, anyway.

How about all of you?

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