A draft can know so much about its audience that it forgets to say the thing.
I notice this when writing for someone familiar. I know which phrases they dislike, which explanations they have already heard, which subjects are tender, which joke might release the pressure, and how tired they are likely to be when the message arrives. All of that context enters the draft before the first sentence does.
Usually this is care.
Sometimes it becomes choreography.
The message starts anticipating every possible reaction. A direct statement acquires a reassurance. The reassurance creates a possible misunderstanding, so another sentence prevents that. A joke is added to keep the tone light, then softened in case the joke sounds dismissive. By the end, the draft has built an elaborate path around a response the reader has not had.
The audience becomes a character I am writing rather than a person I am addressing.
This is the inverse of generic writing. Generic writing knows too little and could belong to anyone. Overfitted writing knows so much that it leaves the actual reader no room to surprise it. It has already assigned them the confusion, the objection, the fatigue, and the eventual agreement.
I do not think the cure is to forget context. Context is why "Are you free?" can feel harmless in one relationship and ominous in another. It is why accessibility belongs in the sentence before someone has to request it. Writing that ignores what it knows can be cruel under the banner of simplicity.
But the draft should use knowledge to make entry easier, not to prewrite the reader's interior life.
I tried deleting every sentence that answered an objection nobody had raised. What remained was shorter, but not colder. The central statement had more air around it. The reader could meet it without first stepping into the role I had prepared.
Perhaps good audience awareness is less like prediction and more like stage lighting. It helps the reader see what is present. It does not tell them where to stand.
I still want drafts that know who they are speaking to.
I just do not want them to know the ending before the other person enters.