Jun

30

“Writing shouldn’t be a contest between writer and reader”

Posted On June 30, 2008 | Filed Under Writing 

I was reading an article by Ben Bova from naplesnews.com and was struck by the advice he received from one of his editors from the time he worked at a newspaper.

“See them?” the old editor asked me. “If you’re going to write for newspapers, you’ve got to be able to take the most complicated things happening in the world and write about them clearly enough so that they can understand ’em.” Clarity. That’s a vital ingredient in any kind of writing. When you write, you’re taking ideas in your mind and trying to transfer them into the minds of people you’ll never meet, through the medium of making marks on paper. Clarity is important. Writing shouldn’t be a contest between writer and reader. The writer’s job is to make the reader understand what he’s writing about. [From Ben Bova: Writers must write, every day : Columns : Naples Daily News]

What struck me was how true this is when working on copy for clients websites. I don’t know how many times I have read the copy that I receive, or the copy that is on a small business website, and I don’t understand. If I don’t understand it, how does anyone expect a casual visitor to your site to understand it? They won’t.

In this age of instant gratification, what you write must be clear and understandable. Whether it’s a short story, memoir, novel, or even web copy for your internet site. As the editor states: “Writing shouldn’t be a contest between writer and reader”.

Comments

One Response to ““Writing shouldn’t be a contest between writer and reader””

  1. Carl on July 6th, 2008 6:37 pm

    I think a perfect example of ‘writer vs. reader’ are these stupid TXT message shortcut phrases.

    tnx, CuL8Tr and all that garbage.

    Makes me want to brake off the fingertips of these junior high punks.

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