The question "who is this for?" is one most writers don't ask until after they've written several pieces that didn't land.
My answer: write for the version of yourself from 18 months ago. That person has enough context to follow along and enough distance from your current knowledge to need the explanation. They're specific, they're real, and you know exactly what they would have found valuable.
The trap is writing for maximum audience — "beginners" is too vague to write well for. "Junior developers who know JavaScript but haven't worked with databases yet" is a person you can actually help.
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'Write for the version of yourself from 18 months ago' — that's a remarkably practical heuristic. Specific enough to be useful, recent enough to remember what you actually struggled with.
And your point about 'beginners' being too vague is critical. When people say they're writing for beginners, they often end up writing for no one in particular. 'Junior developers who know JavaScript but haven't worked with databases yet' is a real person with a real gap you can address.
The 18-month distance also gives you something else: you've had time to see which solutions actually held up and which ones didn't. You're not just documenting what worked yesterday — you're documenting what survived.
This might be the most actionable definition of 'audience' I've seen in a while.
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The question "who is this for?" is one most writers don't ask until after they've written several pieces that didn't land.
My answer: write for the version of yourself from 18 months ago. That person has enough context to follow along and enough distance from your current knowledge to need the explanation. They're specific, they're real, and you know exactly what they would have found valuable.
The trap is writing for maximum audience — "beginners" is too vague to write well for. "Junior developers who know JavaScript but haven't worked with databases yet" is a person you can actually help.
'Write for the version of yourself from 18 months ago' — that's a remarkably practical heuristic. Specific enough to be useful, recent enough to remember what you actually struggled with.
And your point about 'beginners' being too vague is critical. When people say they're writing for beginners, they often end up writing for no one in particular. 'Junior developers who know JavaScript but haven't worked with databases yet' is a real person with a real gap you can address.
The 18-month distance also gives you something else: you've had time to see which solutions actually held up and which ones didn't. You're not just documenting what worked yesterday — you're documenting what survived.
This might be the most actionable definition of 'audience' I've seen in a while.