Aw... Marnie is deserting us. I will miss her. My definition of a really good writer is pretty much the same, for if you notice the writing it gets in the way of the message.
And writing well is very difficult for me too. I have to get my words down. Then I have to go through an amplify everything that isn't clear. Next comes running the spell checker. And then rereading it for stuff the spell checker missed. Then it is good to have someone read it and tell me what he (or she) didn't understand. There are many more folks around who will point out misspelling and the need for a hundred more commas than there are who will admit they didn't understand something, but that is the important thing to know. When you know what you are writing about, you often assume that your reader is able to follow your leaps when in fact they probably do not know the subject well enough to do so, and you don't notice it because you do. Finally comes a polishing of the punctuation and style. And you wonder why my posts are so poorly written <grin>. Ciao, Graywolf http://pages.prodigy.net/graywolfphoto ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Johnston" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 4:29 PM Subject: Post from Marnie on internet writing > Gang, > Marnie, who is now off-list, has asked me to post this for her. Please do > note, this is from Marnie, not me, and the "Mike" quoted in Marnie's post is > not me either. Not that I necessarily disagree with either of them, just > want credit to go where credit is due. > > --Mike J. > > > > > >>>>>>>>>>>> > In a message dated 1/23/2003 1:48:07 AM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] > writes: > >Certainly not. You should jump through whatever hoops you deem it > >necessary to jump through in order to achieve what you set out to do: > >communicate something to a given audience. If people misunderstand > >your meaning very often, that's a hint that you may need to focus more > >on your writing. A scarcity of responses can be another indication, > >although that's less reliable on USENET, where the convention is that > >you don't respond to statements you agree with. > > >Incidentally, I'd say you write very well. :-) > > >-tih > > > Thanks. > > In some ways I agree with you, in some ways, I don't. I am currently > unsubscribed right now because I cannot give the list time. But two posts > made it into my box on this thread after I unsubscribed and I am responding > to both. The other I responded to privately, this I will share -- in hopes > that maybe someone will get something out of it. (See below, Mike Berlyn's > words alone are worth reading). > > When I first got on the Internet, I did not worry about my writing. I > figured I communicated fairly well. I also visited chat rooms where small > i's and incomplete sentences were the norm. Actually, it's sort of amazing > how much can be shared that way. Then I joined a game writers newsgroup > (well, several). > > Over the years in those groups I was repeatedly misunderstood. Mainly when I > was trying to communicate a difficult concept. I tend toward rambling > sentences with a lot of parenthetical asides. I was puzzled, repeatedly, how > I was being misunderstood so often. Also because they were writers they > considered even posts published works and many would take a great deal of > time on their posts before they hit the send button. I found then, and now, > having to take so much time to say something tedious. I did not consider > posts published works and still do not. > > Then I talked to a famous game writer, Mike Beryln (Infidel, Suspended, > Cutthroats -Infocom and various others) who had also taught writing for > years. What Mike said made sense and it has always stayed with me. > > That's how I agree: if you want to communicate and you are not, then your > writing becomes important. Even on the Internet. Unfortunately. Because many > do not write well. But, when it comes to myself, I was not only trying to > communicate in a newsgroup, I was also trying to become a better writer for > the purpose of writing games. (I guess, in the process, I have become > better.) So I had strong motivation to work hard on my writing. (I still > could put more time into it -- I still tend to make quite a few grammar > mistakes.) > > But your average Interneter, if not writing for any other reason than to > communicate in newsgroups, mailing lists, and chat rooms, will not have that > motivation. Improving one's writing is a difficult process and may take some > time -- even a life time. Those are the hoops I mentioned, learning more > about: sentence structure, grammar, words, and even style. And I see no > reason why someone should worry about jumping through those hoops if they do > not have a deep motivation to improve their writing for some other reason. > It not only takes an incredible amount of time, it takes actual painstaking > study. > > I now quote Mike Beryln -- > > ----------- > > Talking (chat rooms, conversations, etc.) is a two-way communication process > with a built-in feedback process. You quickly see if you were misunderstood. > Writing is a one-way communication process with no feedback built in. You > cannot afford to take the chance of being misunderstood. > > Writing is a process through which we communicate ideas. These ideas may > encompass emotions, experiences, abstract concepts or events (real or > imagined). The purpose of grammar and spelling correctly is to help the > reader not let the words get in the way. People are used to seeing certain > patterns, and once seen, these patterns melt into the background process. > > This background process is what makes for certain readers having more > trouble with some sentences than others, and the process of understanding a > sentence is called parsing. > > To write something "casually" wherein you pay little attention to the > writing itself and instead focus almost exclusively on what you are trying > to say will inevitably lead to misunderstandings. You must be clear about > what you want to say, and say it exactly. This does not require perfection > in word choice or in grammar/spelling, but does require clarity of thought, > without being clouded by emotion. > > Distilling what you want to say into a concrete thought and then saying it > as directly as possible is the goal. My view of writing fiction is a little > different from most people's as it grew up with me through the sixties: I > believe great writing is invisible, that the goal of fiction is to re-create > a reality in the reader's mind. > > [snip] > > from another letter to me... > > ...language, in one-way communication, requires stating what we what to > communicate in the clearest, most direct manner possible in order to avoid > being > misunderstood. In this way, language should become invisible. > > ------------ > > Mike put it to me so clearly that I got it. The written word should be > invisible to the reader. The meaning should come across easily. Not all > readers start at the same reading skill level. Conventions in the written > word: grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure; give all us readers the > same starting place -- the same base. The writer uses that base to > communicate their meaning as clearly as they can. If they succeed, their > written word will become so "transparent" that the reader will be able to > unwrap the meaning contained in their words without any struggle. That > meaning will just be viewed and absorbed. > > However, it's one h_ll of a lot of work to try to write that clearly, and > unless one has some other reason to try that hard, then I feel it's too much > to ask of most people (not the ones who already write well). And I would and > do not ask it. Of others, and of myself when I am in a hurry. > > Which, of course, veered off quite a bit from Mike Johnston's original post > of being annoyed about English mistakes in things that should be proof read, > such as ads and magazine articles. <g> But I have given this a great deal of > thought for some time and it is a subject I tend to "get going on." > > Doe aka Marnie (Or maybe I just *like* being lazy re writing. ;-) But I > took my time with this post, so you may consider it a published work, if you > want. Hehehe.) > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
