The Writer's Audience is Always fiction

Walter Ong's essay "The Writer's Audience is Always Fiction" made me think about the way that I both read and write in a different manner. Ong began his essay by pointing out the differences in the audience for a written document and a public speech. In a speech the speaker will know in advance who is writer might be and certainly can adapt his speech to meet the audience he is presented with when he actually delievers the speech. A writer can anticipate who might read their work but ultimately they can't change what they have written. Ong plans on taking these givens and exploring what challenges this presents for a writer.
Ong talks about a common assignment students receive from teachers when they return to school, "write about your summer vacation". For a student this is a difficult assignment because, Ong argues, there is no audience which the student can imagine sitting down and talking about his summer vacation with. The author suggests that to succesfully complete the assignment the student might create an audience he is more comfortable with or alter his writing style so the teacher can relate to his summer vacation.
An author doesn't know what time of mood his reader will be in, where his reader will try to read his work, and the author might not even be 100% sure who will read his work. One way an author can try to negate that disadvantage is to give readers general roles they have to fill. Ong explained how many popular authors created a variety of roles for their audiences. The audience might be on a pilgrammage, like in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, or they might be reading a series of letters passed between friends. An issue with placing demands on readers is that if the demands don't fit the time period or are just too difficult the readers will tune out any message the author is trying to send. Ong argues that this solution to give readers roles can be seen in sports or war corespondence of modern newspapers.
Most of this essay seemed to deal with classical literature authors but in the final section it was argued that the audience was fiction in all genres of writing. In history the interpretation of the"facts" by the historian and the method he goes about delivering those facts is partly due to an audience whose demands must be catered to. Ong suggests that this is why it is rare that historians will explain the same event in the exact same way. Even personal correspondence is fictionalized. It is pointed out in the article that it would be silly if one person greeted another by saying "Dear John" on the street. Similarly writings such as "hi" or "greetings" come off as insincere when written.