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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47371
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

For me one of the uses of writing is to help me work out, clarify and order my thoughts on some matter. The process of developing a clear and definite explanation for someone else, regardless of whether anybody else actually reads it or not, helps me make sure that I really do understand what I think I understand and exposes any areas where I need to do further work. It's not necessary for anybody else to read the result for me to get this benefit; it's the process of creating the work that's important.

While a fairly obvious case for this this is for developing and confirming understanding of mathematical and scientific ideas (famously, every Haskell programmer [writes a monad tutorial](https://byorgey.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/abstraction-intuition-and-the-monad-tutorial-fallacy/)), it's useful in other areas, such as fiction, as well. Most works of fiction live in a world that's not entirely written up in the story itself; to be convincing the author must still know and understand this background because it will "leak" into the story as written. Writing up this background can help ensure that it's both consistent and understood by the author. Virtually every television show has a [bible](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_(screenwriting)), never intended to be read by the viewers, for exactly this reason (though it's also used to share information amongst the team of writers).

Original score: 3