Empathy again, hitting the nail on the head

I've recently been reading a blog titled Captain Picard's journal. Don't run away, I am no Star Trek geek (no offence intended to the writer of this blog). I have watched Star Trek, however, and the reason I like this blog so much is that if you know what these characters are like on television, you'll see how perfectly the writing gets inside their heads. It is a brilliant example of empathy being used to bring a character to life, to speak to the reader and to guide the tone and flow of the text.

The point of my rambling here is that if you really know who you are writing for and about, everything seems to just fall into place: 'oh, they wouldn't say that in this way, they'd use this word here and it would sound like this'. It makes things so much easier, and has been the cure for a few nasty bouts of editing/writing block which I have experienced. Think like your audience and you can experience some very enlightening 'oh yeah!' moments.