Snippets
chris higgs’ latest post produced a discussion about audience. i have thought about this before. my question is: can you ever have an audience (outside of yourself) in mind while you are writing? if you have an audience in mind before writing, doesn’t that mean that you are dealing with something that is already common? and doesn’t that mean that you are offering something that is not truly unique? the discussion branched off into the classic “indie small audience” versus the “mainstream big audience” talk. i don’t understand anyone wanting either in advance. audience seems to be something that happens afterward, long after anything the writer does. i understand eventually feeling good about a large group of people reading something you are pleased with, but i don’t understand wanting this in advance of pleasing yourself. again, i am not suggesting that only small audiences are good (good meaning representative of quality) and big audiences are always bad. what i mean is, can you imagine how drained a book that appeals to the whole world would be? i don’t think it’s even possible to imagine a book the entire u.s. would like, or an entire state. which to me, seems to mean that the audience you don’t have is also important. i’m just thinking.
for some reason, i just thought of my life in the food industry in respect to audience, and in response to your final question: “what i mean is, can you imagine how drained a book that appeals to the whole world would be?”
there’s a balance struck when cooking for large audiences, between being bland enough to appeal to more people (and those people can add salt and pepper at the table), and being good enough to have people interested.
then, you have the upscale restaurants, who pinpoint their audience, and know what liberties they can take with seasonings and such to really bring the food to life.
in my head, this analogy makes complete sense when taken in the context of audience considerations while writing.
personally, i don’t think i write with any particular audience in mind. i fall more into line with this mentality: “eventually feeling good about a large [or small] group of people reading something you are pleased with, but i don’t understand wanting this in advance of pleasing yourself.”
for some reason, i just thought of my life in the food industry in respect to audience, and in response to your final question: “what i mean is, can you imagine how drained a book that appeals to the whole world would be?”
there’s a balance struck when cooking for large audiences, between being bland enough to appeal to more people (and those people can add salt and pepper at the table), and being good enough to have people interested.
then, you have the upscale restaurants, who pinpoint their audience, and know what liberties they can take with seasonings and such to really bring the food to life.
in my head, this analogy makes complete sense when taken in the context of audience considerations while writing.
personally, i don’t think i write with any particular audience in mind. i fall more into line with this mentality: “eventually feeling good about a large [or small] group of people reading something you are pleased with, but i don’t understand wanting this in advance of pleasing yourself.”
that’s a really good analogy in my opinion.
that’s a really good analogy in my opinion.
you have to please yourself, of course, but as someone who’s written for a wide variety of audiences. having dabbled in professional, technical, journalistic, personal, and literary writing, i feel that i would be completely lying to myself if i said that thinking about audience wasn’t part of my writing process.
when you’re writing, you’re navigating a big ass ocean and you’re constantly making decisions about which way to turn and how fast to go and what type of equipment to use, etc. and what’s so wrong about thinking about the people riding on your boat? what do they want to know about life? what will make them laugh? or cry? or shit their pants? that’s just being a responsible skipper, i think.
i also think this is a good discussion to have.
you have to please yourself, of course, but as someone who’s written for a wide variety of audiences. having dabbled in professional, technical, journalistic, personal, and literary writing, i feel that i would be completely lying to myself if i said that thinking about audience wasn’t part of my writing process.
when you’re writing, you’re navigating a big ass ocean and you’re constantly making decisions about which way to turn and how fast to go and what type of equipment to use, etc. and what’s so wrong about thinking about the people riding on your boat? what do they want to know about life? what will make them laugh? or cry? or shit their pants? that’s just being a responsible skipper, i think.
i also think this is a good discussion to have.
yeah. having dabbled in journalism, and now working tech writing for the past 3 years, i do consider my audience much more in those writing processes.
for some reason, with poetry and fiction, i don’t so much. perhaps because i write these as a more personal endeavor, whereas, my stints in journalism and currently in tech writing has much more of a “pay the bills” sort of feel to it–they are much less personal to me–i’m writing to please my manager, or my editor. though, my journalism was for an alt-weekly rag here in Indy, so i was afforded a bit more creativity.
but, with my creative endeavors, i want to please myself first, make sense to myself first–and then if someone comes along and reads what i’ve put down on paper, and connects to it, brings themselves to the table in a way that finds something honest and good there, then i’ve done something right.
yeah. having dabbled in journalism, and now working tech writing for the past 3 years, i do consider my audience much more in those writing processes.
for some reason, with poetry and fiction, i don’t so much. perhaps because i write these as a more personal endeavor, whereas, my stints in journalism and currently in tech writing has much more of a “pay the bills” sort of feel to it–they are much less personal to me–i’m writing to please my manager, or my editor. though, my journalism was for an alt-weekly rag here in Indy, so i was afforded a bit more creativity.
but, with my creative endeavors, i want to please myself first, make sense to myself first–and then if someone comes along and reads what i’ve put down on paper, and connects to it, brings themselves to the table in a way that finds something honest and good there, then i’ve done something right.
[…] (22) Writing like a chef? September 15, 2009, 8:58 pm Filed under: thoughts, writing Sam Pink responded to another post/discussion by Chris Higgs about audience consideration while writing, begging this […]
do you think writing journalism or tech stuff is not creative? i really don’t see much of a difference anymore, except for different audiences with different expectations.
i think if you asked kurt vonnegut or stephen king or someone who sells a lot of books and manages not to be a total and complete asshole, they’d probably think the whole idea of this conversation was pretty laughable. people that sell (or sold) millions of copies, their audience didn’t come from nowhere; generally, those books are fed to people by large companies, and they’re accepted by the people because the books are working within certain formulas that people recognize and accept and enjoy and want to share with others.
it seems to me that indie literature has lost touch with its young home base. i think companies like harper perennial are the only bigger guys trying to reach young thinking people and i don’t know how good a job they’re doing because their sales are certainly not going through the roof or anything, because i think we’d be hearing about it if they were.
unless the small presses do a better job of marketing or something it really doesn’t seem like things are going to change; and why shouldn’t things change? it’d be great to have a bunch of people reading good, inexpensive books, and sharing them and such. i don’t think anyone doesn’t want that. at least i hope they don’t because that wouldn’t make any sense to me.
do you think writing journalism or tech stuff is not creative? i really don’t see much of a difference anymore, except for different audiences with different expectations.
i think if you asked kurt vonnegut or stephen king or someone who sells a lot of books and manages not to be a total and complete asshole, they’d probably think the whole idea of this conversation was pretty laughable. people that sell (or sold) millions of copies, their audience didn’t come from nowhere; generally, those books are fed to people by large companies, and they’re accepted by the people because the books are working within certain formulas that people recognize and accept and enjoy and want to share with others.
it seems to me that indie literature has lost touch with its young home base. i think companies like harper perennial are the only bigger guys trying to reach young thinking people and i don’t know how good a job they’re doing because their sales are certainly not going through the roof or anything, because i think we’d be hearing about it if they were.
unless the small presses do a better job of marketing or something it really doesn’t seem like things are going to change; and why shouldn’t things change? it’d be great to have a bunch of people reading good, inexpensive books, and sharing them and such. i don’t think anyone doesn’t want that. at least i hope they don’t because that wouldn’t make any sense to me.
Doesn’t make sense to me.
If you’re writing ‘for an audience’ then you have a goal in mind. Like in tech writing, the goal is to help the user complete a task. In this scenario, you want the reader to react a certain way. What’s the goal in fiction or poetry?
Let’s say writing is a collaboration between writer and reader. Naturally follows the reader can only make his contribution (interpretation, emotion, intellectual appraisal, etc) after the writer. If the writer is making his own contribution in terms of how he wants the reader to react, then to me he’s already fucked it, he’s made it superficial. In other words, he’s attempting to guide what could have been a natural process and maybe it will work, but maybe it won’t. Am I being too much of a purist or just naive?
Doesn’t make sense to me.
If you’re writing ‘for an audience’ then you have a goal in mind. Like in tech writing, the goal is to help the user complete a task. In this scenario, you want the reader to react a certain way. What’s the goal in fiction or poetry?
Let’s say writing is a collaboration between writer and reader. Naturally follows the reader can only make his contribution (interpretation, emotion, intellectual appraisal, etc) after the writer. If the writer is making his own contribution in terms of how he wants the reader to react, then to me he’s already fucked it, he’s made it superficial. In other words, he’s attempting to guide what could have been a natural process and maybe it will work, but maybe it won’t. Am I being too much of a purist or just naive?
I write for boys. I imagine a bar full of cute boys, or a club of dancing boys all cute who have stopped dancing for a moment to listen to what I am about to read on stage. There has to be a stage because writing, for me, is performance. And there has to be boys because I like performing for them. I want the boys to dance on the stage all around me to the words I am reading, then stage dive. Stuff like that.
I write for boys. I imagine a bar full of cute boys, or a club of dancing boys all cute who have stopped dancing for a moment to listen to what I am about to read on stage. There has to be a stage because writing, for me, is performance. And there has to be boys because I like performing for them. I want the boys to dance on the stage all around me to the words I am reading, then stage dive. Stuff like that.
i like thinking about you thinking about that
i like thinking about you thinking about that
i just thought about an audience as a group of people with their backs turned and then they slowly start turning around when you say something.
i just thought about an audience as a group of people with their backs turned and then they slowly start turning around when you say something.
Sam, I like that image quite a lot.
Sam, I like that image quite a lot.
i know what you’re saying, ani. but what i’m saying is that i think everyone essentially does this anyway – writes for an audience, whether consciously or unconsciously. you may not have an idea of who it will be, but just the idea alone of writing something, thinking somewhere in the back of your mind: i will edit this and send it out to be published; that’s already wiped clean whatever purity there could be in the thing.
a great example of this is livejournal; it’s like, how pure can it be if you put it online? obviously you want someone to read it, right? there are just varying degrees to which things are intended for a particular audience.
frankly, i do think it’s naive – not that you’re alone in thinking it.
i know what you’re saying, ani. but what i’m saying is that i think everyone essentially does this anyway – writes for an audience, whether consciously or unconsciously. you may not have an idea of who it will be, but just the idea alone of writing something, thinking somewhere in the back of your mind: i will edit this and send it out to be published; that’s already wiped clean whatever purity there could be in the thing.
a great example of this is livejournal; it’s like, how pure can it be if you put it online? obviously you want someone to read it, right? there are just varying degrees to which things are intended for a particular audience.
frankly, i do think it’s naive – not that you’re alone in thinking it.
hell yeah. when i thought it i went to type it real fast, then i stopped and thought, “maybe it’s not good” but guess what, i didn’t care.
hell yeah. when i thought it i went to type it real fast, then i stopped and thought, “maybe it’s not good” but guess what, i didn’t care.
I think that honest writing happens when you write for yourself. Writing for an audience is bullshit unless you are that audience (or, if the audience is someone you want to sleep with- that’s the exception)
I think that honest writing happens when you write for yourself. Writing for an audience is bullshit unless you are that audience (or, if the audience is someone you want to sleep with- that’s the exception)
For me, writing is communicative. That’s what literature, as an art form, does. If I am writing a story, I think about wanting to express myself clearly, about wanting to evoke a certain feeling, about not wanting to be too vague or conversely not giving too much away, etc. I don’t sit around and think about things like “what if no one likes this?” or “what if people think this is weird?” or anything like that. But I feel like most craft considerations I have are dependent on the idea of there being a reader. I wouldn’t know how to even go about editing or critiquing my own work if not from the starting point of thinking of someone else reading it, and wondering if it would have the effect I intend, if someone would find it moving or funny or coherent or whatever. So I don’t think of audience in terms of “I want 5 people to read this” or “I want 50,000 people to read this” or “I want only 20-something hipsters or 40-something soccer moms to read this,” but I think of a reader.
For me, writing is communicative. That’s what literature, as an art form, does. If I am writing a story, I think about wanting to express myself clearly, about wanting to evoke a certain feeling, about not wanting to be too vague or conversely not giving too much away, etc. I don’t sit around and think about things like “what if no one likes this?” or “what if people think this is weird?” or anything like that. But I feel like most craft considerations I have are dependent on the idea of there being a reader. I wouldn’t know how to even go about editing or critiquing my own work if not from the starting point of thinking of someone else reading it, and wondering if it would have the effect I intend, if someone would find it moving or funny or coherent or whatever. So I don’t think of audience in terms of “I want 5 people to read this” or “I want 50,000 people to read this” or “I want only 20-something hipsters or 40-something soccer moms to read this,” but I think of a reader.
i’d like to know what the term ‘honest writing’ means. writing that tells the truth? non-fiction? what does that mean?
i’d like to know what the term ‘honest writing’ means. writing that tells the truth? non-fiction? what does that mean?
Your question seems needlessly obtuse (or at least pedantic), but ‘honest’ writing is, I guess, writing that strives to be meaningful and that isn’t created to pander to an audience. I view Dan Brown (etc) as dishonest. That is, his novels are more designed than written. He seems to want to please a specific sort of (largely disinterested) reader and sell a lot of books. Rather than say something meaningful about the human condition, or do something new or interesting with language or style, he chooses to pander to an audience that consumes books the same way they consume snack foods.
Your question seems needlessly obtuse (or at least pedantic), but ‘honest’ writing is, I guess, writing that strives to be meaningful and that isn’t created to pander to an audience. I view Dan Brown (etc) as dishonest. That is, his novels are more designed than written. He seems to want to please a specific sort of (largely disinterested) reader and sell a lot of books. Rather than say something meaningful about the human condition, or do something new or interesting with language or style, he chooses to pander to an audience that consumes books the same way they consume snack foods.
When you’re writing are you thinking about sending it out to be published? Only about a third of what I write ends up being submitted anywhere. I write things that please me. When I’m done, if I judge the work good enough, then I send it out. They seem seperate things to me.
Maybe I’m alone in this
When you’re writing are you thinking about sending it out to be published? Only about a third of what I write ends up being submitted anywhere. I write things that please me. When I’m done, if I judge the work good enough, then I send it out. They seem seperate things to me.
Maybe I’m alone in this
I just realized that I may have come off as an asshole there. I didn’t mean it the way it reads. Sorry
I just realized that I may have come off as an asshole there. I didn’t mean it the way it reads. Sorry
you’re probably right about dan brown. i wouldn’t know, because i haven’t read him, at all. i haven’t seen that movie either. you know, the one with the guy.
but do you really think his audience is ‘disinterested’? they certainly seem captivated for people who are disinterested. and do you know for a fact that he isn’t saying anything about the human condition? i find that hard to believe.
i’ve very little doubt that dan brown and his writing are assholes together, but the world is full of assholes. i just don’t think the sentiment of like, i don’t think about an audience because my work is pure and righteous and above-all-that, is pretty disingenuous. there are just varying degrees of cheesiness. it’s a taste thing, more than anything else.
honestly, i feel there needs to be a real effort to get people reading again, finding a way, any damn way, to get books into people’s hands who couldn’t care less about writing a damn word. i don’t care what anyone says, not everyone wants to write a novel! because it’s this situation, nathan – people not reading things i think they should or could be reading (i know, i know) – is what’s really pissing me off. and i’m really sick of it. and i think it’s this attitude of purity that’s doing it. find an audience, a group of people, organized whichever which way, and find a way to approach them. i feel like it’s the only way.
i’m mostly playing devil’s advocate here anyway, because it’s something i’ve been thinking about lately. and we won’t exactly get anywhere if everyone agrees on everything all the time, will we?
wow, this is a long damn comment.
you’re probably right about dan brown. i wouldn’t know, because i haven’t read him, at all. i haven’t seen that movie either. you know, the one with the guy.
but do you really think his audience is ‘disinterested’? they certainly seem captivated for people who are disinterested. and do you know for a fact that he isn’t saying anything about the human condition? i find that hard to believe.
i’ve very little doubt that dan brown and his writing are assholes together, but the world is full of assholes. i just don’t think the sentiment of like, i don’t think about an audience because my work is pure and righteous and above-all-that, is pretty disingenuous. there are just varying degrees of cheesiness. it’s a taste thing, more than anything else.
honestly, i feel there needs to be a real effort to get people reading again, finding a way, any damn way, to get books into people’s hands who couldn’t care less about writing a damn word. i don’t care what anyone says, not everyone wants to write a novel! because it’s this situation, nathan – people not reading things i think they should or could be reading (i know, i know) – is what’s really pissing me off. and i’m really sick of it. and i think it’s this attitude of purity that’s doing it. find an audience, a group of people, organized whichever which way, and find a way to approach them. i feel like it’s the only way.
i’m mostly playing devil’s advocate here anyway, because it’s something i’ve been thinking about lately. and we won’t exactly get anywhere if everyone agrees on everything all the time, will we?
wow, this is a long damn comment.
Some days you’re just struggling to get the words up on the screen or scrawled across the page. A lot of writing that works, I think you start with yourself as your audience. You make yourself grin and you hit control S like fifteen times to make sure you don’t lose that line. You ride the dopamine surge into the next few sentences. You call it a day and you drive carefully with your laptop like you’re transporting a baby or an organ, either the internal kind or a musical instrument if you’d prefer, to make sure your hard drive doesn’t do something statistically unlikely but catastrophic on the ride home. You look at it again the next morning and you are a different person then, and thus the audience question widens. Does it pass the overnight test? Is the audience now reading it (you numero dos) calling for more? It’s a new day, and new things have happened, and the work opens up in new directions; how could you not have seen them previously? Or you read some towering literary figure that morning, and so that towering literary figure actually sneaks his or her way into your posited audience.
I’m using the second person, but I hope it’s obvious that I’m talking about me, but there are a multitude of mes and that’s what I’m driving at, ultimately, that for me (and maybe you) the notion of audience fluctuates as you are writing a piece just as your characters do, your plot twists, the whole enchilada. I really like the chef analogy above, but picture making a dish over weeks or months, which is usually what it takes me to write a story I consider worthwhile.
i feel you, angi. the faceless head.
Some days you’re just struggling to get the words up on the screen or scrawled across the page. A lot of writing that works, I think you start with yourself as your audience. You make yourself grin and you hit control S like fifteen times to make sure you don’t lose that line. You ride the dopamine surge into the next few sentences. You call it a day and you drive carefully with your laptop like you’re transporting a baby or an organ, either the internal kind or a musical instrument if you’d prefer, to make sure your hard drive doesn’t do something statistically unlikely but catastrophic on the ride home. You look at it again the next morning and you are a different person then, and thus the audience question widens. Does it pass the overnight test? Is the audience now reading it (you numero dos) calling for more? It’s a new day, and new things have happened, and the work opens up in new directions; how could you not have seen them previously? Or you read some towering literary figure that morning, and so that towering literary figure actually sneaks his or her way into your posited audience.
I’m using the second person, but I hope it’s obvious that I’m talking about me, but there are a multitude of mes and that’s what I’m driving at, ultimately, that for me (and maybe you) the notion of audience fluctuates as you are writing a piece just as your characters do, your plot twists, the whole enchilada. I really like the chef analogy above, but picture making a dish over weeks or months, which is usually what it takes me to write a story I consider worthwhile.
i feel you, angi. the faceless head.
Reynard
Damn! That is a long comment. I get what you’re saying and I don’t disagree with most of it.
Reynard
Damn! That is a long comment. I get what you’re saying and I don’t disagree with most of it.
i wonder if there are loose divides in this, or stuff that makes ‘audience’ more pointed.
for instance: if someone is more genre-orientated? if you’re working within sci-fi or romance (or whatever) presumably the writing is essentially audience-focused, because it’s immediately got a demographic towards whom it’s directed.
but maybe that’s chicken and egg,and some people find they most naturally write, say, romance, but have no particular aim in mind for it.
i also think there’s probably the fact that some people write to be accessible. some don’t. i guess some people don’t think about it either way. and ‘accessible’ is probably essentially context-determined.
but. writing that appears overtly ‘accessible’ (however you determine that) – well, i suppose it’d be more easy to see that as audience-centric.
i genuinely feel like it’s a difficult question to answer, and similarly to what some people have already raised, i do feel like there can be something vaguely inauthentic about not, in the first place, just writing for one’s self. but i guess that takes all sorts of forms.
i might write about someone, but rarely to them. probably the only person who pops up with any regularity in my writing is my boyfriend, and then it’s just fleeting traces, but even then it’s rarely ‘to’ him.
in terms of my own stuff, the bit i grapple with in answering the question is this:
my favourite stuff to write is pretty abstract, and not necessarily very/at all penetrable. i fiddle around with other forms too, but i generally don’t like them as much.
i have a soft spot for reading other people’s ‘writing as secret code’ when it’s particularly well done. i often find writing that doesn’t give direct answers on a page a lot more engaging.
theoretically i write for me, in the first place. unless i’m writing with a particular theme for a zine in mind, it’s not generally ‘i’m going to write this with targeting it to a specific place in mind.’
however, it’s the more abstract – or ‘experimental-‘ or whatever stuff, with which better hooks me, when i feel like it’s done what i wanted it to. and here’s the thing. i do send my work out there. and when the stuff that’s less easy to get inside of ends up in places i like, to which i feel it’s suited? i’m pleased. partly for the fact that other people might not have a clue what i’m on about (/on…) but that someone else has connected with it enough anyway.again, i find that more satisfying when it’s writing that’s more oblique in some manner.
i guess it always becomes a communication on some level as soon as you put your writing out there.
i don’t think there’s anything wrong in the slightest with writing for an audience, though i do think it’s probably not always a conscious thing. but i kind of assume for the most part most of us basically write for ourselves in the first place, and if we later decide to target it somewhere, ‘audience’ comes then.
i wonder if there are loose divides in this, or stuff that makes ‘audience’ more pointed.
for instance: if someone is more genre-orientated? if you’re working within sci-fi or romance (or whatever) presumably the writing is essentially audience-focused, because it’s immediately got a demographic towards whom it’s directed.
but maybe that’s chicken and egg,and some people find they most naturally write, say, romance, but have no particular aim in mind for it.
i also think there’s probably the fact that some people write to be accessible. some don’t. i guess some people don’t think about it either way. and ‘accessible’ is probably essentially context-determined.
but. writing that appears overtly ‘accessible’ (however you determine that) – well, i suppose it’d be more easy to see that as audience-centric.
i genuinely feel like it’s a difficult question to answer, and similarly to what some people have already raised, i do feel like there can be something vaguely inauthentic about not, in the first place, just writing for one’s self. but i guess that takes all sorts of forms.
i might write about someone, but rarely to them. probably the only person who pops up with any regularity in my writing is my boyfriend, and then it’s just fleeting traces, but even then it’s rarely ‘to’ him.
in terms of my own stuff, the bit i grapple with in answering the question is this:
my favourite stuff to write is pretty abstract, and not necessarily very/at all penetrable. i fiddle around with other forms too, but i generally don’t like them as much.
i have a soft spot for reading other people’s ‘writing as secret code’ when it’s particularly well done. i often find writing that doesn’t give direct answers on a page a lot more engaging.
theoretically i write for me, in the first place. unless i’m writing with a particular theme for a zine in mind, it’s not generally ‘i’m going to write this with targeting it to a specific place in mind.’
however, it’s the more abstract – or ‘experimental-‘ or whatever stuff, with which better hooks me, when i feel like it’s done what i wanted it to. and here’s the thing. i do send my work out there. and when the stuff that’s less easy to get inside of ends up in places i like, to which i feel it’s suited? i’m pleased. partly for the fact that other people might not have a clue what i’m on about (/on…) but that someone else has connected with it enough anyway.again, i find that more satisfying when it’s writing that’s more oblique in some manner.
i guess it always becomes a communication on some level as soon as you put your writing out there.
i don’t think there’s anything wrong in the slightest with writing for an audience, though i do think it’s probably not always a conscious thing. but i kind of assume for the most part most of us basically write for ourselves in the first place, and if we later decide to target it somewhere, ‘audience’ comes then.
Damn this time difference! I feel like everyone is passed out on couches and the floor and Sam has already shaved their eyebrows and written lines from his poetry on their foreheads.
Still, Reynard, I think knowing that you want people to read what you wrote is different from trying to control their reaction to it. That’s why I asked what the goal is, I think that’s the more important question. I asked someone that was complaining about some rejections what their goal was. The answer to that question (though they weren’t prepared to voice it at the time) was very instructive for them and for me.
I agree with you in that I wish people read more, too. For a few years I gave my brother and sister books for Christmas. The disappointment on their faces!
We can’t make anyone do anything, we can only put it out there and try not to interfere: years later something is lying around my apartment and the cover looks interesting and my brother picks it up and flips through it. I don’t know whether he read it, but he took it with him. I just tried to act neutral.
Damn this time difference! I feel like everyone is passed out on couches and the floor and Sam has already shaved their eyebrows and written lines from his poetry on their foreheads.
Still, Reynard, I think knowing that you want people to read what you wrote is different from trying to control their reaction to it. That’s why I asked what the goal is, I think that’s the more important question. I asked someone that was complaining about some rejections what their goal was. The answer to that question (though they weren’t prepared to voice it at the time) was very instructive for them and for me.
I agree with you in that I wish people read more, too. For a few years I gave my brother and sister books for Christmas. The disappointment on their faces!
We can’t make anyone do anything, we can only put it out there and try not to interfere: years later something is lying around my apartment and the cover looks interesting and my brother picks it up and flips through it. I don’t know whether he read it, but he took it with him. I just tried to act neutral.
One way I like thinking about it is how we internalise our influences and so if we consciously/unconsciously use a bit of Lorrie Moore or DFW then this connects with other people who also like LM or DFW. I don’t think it’s always/usually a deliberate thing, but you can map these things out a bit, and htmlgiant itself demonstrates some of this stuff.
One way I like thinking about it is how we internalise our influences and so if we consciously/unconsciously use a bit of Lorrie Moore or DFW then this connects with other people who also like LM or DFW. I don’t think it’s always/usually a deliberate thing, but you can map these things out a bit, and htmlgiant itself demonstrates some of this stuff.
journalism i see as more creative, especially the writing that i did for it. as i said, i wrote for a local alt-news rag here in Indy, so they afforded me a bit more creativity and human element than, say, the IndyStar (the main Indy newspaper) sending me to cover a bicycle accident police scanner style.
tech writing, i see ways to be creative about it, but generally, i don’t find it to be a creative endeavor. my audience (i write online help for marketing software mostly) is a frustrated marketing professional who has finally given up trying to figure out our software on his/her own and clicked the Help link at the top of the page. there’s not much creative license given in a numbered list of procedural steps.
i don’t have much time to write/reply, so I’ll just copy nathan’s response and say that this also applies to me about 95% of the time:
“When you’re writing are you thinking about sending it out to be published? Only about a third of what I write ends up being submitted anywhere. I write things that please me. When I’m done, if I judge the work good enough, then I send it out. They seem seperate things to me.”
journalism i see as more creative, especially the writing that i did for it. as i said, i wrote for a local alt-news rag here in Indy, so they afforded me a bit more creativity and human element than, say, the IndyStar (the main Indy newspaper) sending me to cover a bicycle accident police scanner style.
tech writing, i see ways to be creative about it, but generally, i don’t find it to be a creative endeavor. my audience (i write online help for marketing software mostly) is a frustrated marketing professional who has finally given up trying to figure out our software on his/her own and clicked the Help link at the top of the page. there’s not much creative license given in a numbered list of procedural steps.
i don’t have much time to write/reply, so I’ll just copy nathan’s response and say that this also applies to me about 95% of the time:
“When you’re writing are you thinking about sending it out to be published? Only about a third of what I write ends up being submitted anywhere. I write things that please me. When I’m done, if I judge the work good enough, then I send it out. They seem seperate things to me.”
Parable of the Cave?…
sorry. immediate thought.
Parable of the Cave?…
sorry. immediate thought.
think the parable of the cave is a little different
think the parable of the cave is a little different
yeah. the way i’d had it initially described to me made the immediate association make more sense in my head.
an old writing prof used it to illustrate how a writer/poet can be seen as the philosopher who broke free and realized the shadows weren’t actually reality, but stuck around in the cave trying to get all of the other prisoners to turn around to see what was real.
he had a really idealistic view of himself as writer.
yeah. the way i’d had it initially described to me made the immediate association make more sense in my head.
an old writing prof used it to illustrate how a writer/poet can be seen as the philosopher who broke free and realized the shadows weren’t actually reality, but stuck around in the cave trying to get all of the other prisoners to turn around to see what was real.
he had a really idealistic view of himself as writer.