What's your role in your reader's life?
About this episode
Ann Kroeker explores how clarifying your role in a reader’s life transforms your writing.
What's your role in your reader's lifeRelease Date: December 2, 2025 In this episode, Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach, explores how clarifying your role in a reader’s life transforms your tone, structure, and connection on the page. Using real-world analogies and examples from Anne Bogel, Annie F. Downs, and Lisa TerKeurst, Ann shows how to choose and calibrate a voice readers trust—whether you’re a knowledgeable friend, a teacher, a tower of authority, or a fellow traveler in the field. In This Episode You’ll Discover: Why defining your role makes writing more intuitive and effective How to spot a voice/role mismatch that’s holding your manuscript back The “knowledgeable friend” approach that helped Anne Bogel find her flow How Annie F. Downs’ “coffee with a friend” brand guides tone and content Lisa TerKeurst’s 4 voices for authors: Tower, Teacher, In the Field, and In the Pit When to avoid the “In the Pit” voice (and what to do instead) Practical tone tweaks: contractions, anecdotes, sentence fragments, vulnerability A quick exercise to test multiple voices and choose what fits How to align structure, examples, and word choice with your chosen role Ways to iterate based on reader…
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