In a letter to the editor Pascal Covici, John Steinbeck mentions how a nameless, faceless, generalized audience will scare you to death. His advice, often repeated by other successful authors, was to write for one person. In other words, you should write with one specific person in mind.

But why should you write as though you’re writing for just one person? This technique takes us well beyond POV for writers, though it does dance on the periphery. It has several advantages that can help improve your writing and make it appealing to a wider audience—despite writing for one person.

It helps you focus your writing.

No matter how big your reading audience is, it’s not a collective. It’s not likely that you, or anyone else, will be standing up at the front of the room with a group of eager “readers” listening together to what you’ve written.

Each of your readers will be engaged in a one-on-one exercise, reading your book individually, and from their own unique perspective. If you try and write with all of those possible perspectives in mind, you’ll try to cover too much ground and your writing will be all over the place.

It loosens up your writing.

Think about your demeanour when you address a group of people compared to when you talk to one person. As soon as you have to talk to a group of people—speaking up in a group meeting, giving a lecture, rallying a crowd—you raise your voice. You may notice your voice becoming a little more high-pitched and even wobbly as your heart rate increases and you breathe faster.

In contrast, when you speak to one person, you’re more relaxed. Your heart rate is slower. Your breathing is even. You drop your voice. And to the listener, that relaxed tone helps the message hit home much more effectively because you deliver it with more confidence.

Steinbeck described how writing for a general audience makes you stiffen like you do when someone is taking your picture. When you write for only one person, you become more relaxed, and this loosens up your writing too. Your tone becomes friendlier and more intimate and you can get your message across without “shouting.”

You keep your message simple.

When you’re giving a speech or lecturing a class, you might be tempted to use big words and florid language. You might also over-explain concepts in case someone in the audience at the back doesn’t understand. But when you speak to someone one-on-one, things are more informal and you automatically simplify your language. You consider what they already know, hone your message to the basics, and allow them to think about it and make the necessary connections.

In the same way, writing for one person rather than many helps you avoid all those embellishments and get straight to the point. They’re more likely to understand what you’re saying when you keep your message simple and concise than when you start muddying it with unnecessary details.

Writing for one person helps you to cut through the noise and focus on the core message.

Your writing is more honest.

When you start writing for only one person, you stop trying to be everything to everyone. Every one of your readers gets to see your truth. So, your writing comes across as more honest.

In the age of search engine optimization and algorithms, writing for one specific person also helps you avoid the trap of trying to write for likes. Because you’re considering what this person might want to know rather than which keywords to use, your writing becomes more personal and less formulaic.

So how do you write for one person rather than many?

This goes well beyond POV for writers, and instead of thinking about whose perspective the writing is coming from, you instead think about who is receiving. Who are you writing for? This doesn’t necessarily mean those target readers who might be interested in your book. Instead, think about who you want to read your book: Who is your ideal reader? What is the message you want to get across to them? Why do you want them to know this? As with just about everything else in writing, you need to be clear about your “why” for writing the book before you can get a picture of this reader.

Now think about who this person is. What is their name? Their background? Their life story? Their relationship to you? They can be a fictional character but you may find it easier to think about an actual person you know.

Once you know who you’re writing for, everything else will fall into place. You’ll know what will interest them and get them hooked. You’ll have an idea of the bits they’ll find boring and will just want to skim through. You’ll know what they know already and be able to pre-empt the questions they might have. You may even be able to predict whether they’ll laugh at your attempts to be witty, or whether they’ll find certain parts offensive or upsetting.

Next, in particular with nonfiction, watch for phrases in your writing like, “Each of you,” “many or you,” or even “dear readers.” They’re dead giveaways you’ve forgotten all about your individual reader and your ego is getting in the way with notions of the masses who might gobble up your book. It is like severing the intimate emotional connection your reader wants with you as the author of the book they’re reading. Instead, when you can and it makes sense for the genre you’re writing in, use second person, “you.”

In the end, because your writing is more focused, more intimate, more concise, and more honest, it will appeal to a wider range of people. You’ll be writing to many, only one at a time.