Re: Chattiness in manuals

[Laura Lemay <lemay-lists1 -at- lauralemay -dot- com>]

Re:  paid by the word and chatty writing

I get paid by the word when I work as a freelancer.   :)

Magazine articles and books -- are indeed paid by the word.  But its  
not like you get paid a buck a word and then they do a word count and  
write you a check ("$2134.56").  You are contracted to, say, write  
2000 words at a buck a word.  if you write too much you have to cut  
it down (or they will, shudder).  Ditto books -- the contract is for,  
say, 250,000 manuscript words.  You're welcome to write more but you  
have to write at least  that much.  Screenshots are worth 250  
words.   (yes, there is a very old joke here about "a picture is  
worth a thousand words" losing out to inflation)

Chatty technical writing, known as the "conversational style,"  is  
highly prized and sought after in the computer book industry.  It is  
more than just making jokes -- there are plenty of Dummies and Idiots  
writers who don't have the skill in the conversational style and it  
feels forced and awkward.  Conversational style is the ability to  
write comfortably and make the reader feel like you are standing  
right there and addressing them as if you know them -- in addition to  
all the usual tech writing skills of structure and clarity and so  
on.  I cheerfully admit that the conversational style is not to  
everyone's taste.  This is why you can look at computer books before  
you buy them and then not buy them.

I am pretty good at the conversational style and I like writing in  
it.  I do not think it is the least bit appropriate in corporate  
documentation unless there is a very specific audience that can  
accept it (and that audience approach is usually used throughout the  
entire company messaging -- marketing, product design, etc).  Your  
readers do not get to choose whether or not to buy corporate  
documentation, so your goal is to piss off the least possible  
percentage of those readers.  Less personality in your writing is  
better.  It took me a long time to come to grips with this;  I felt  
stifled in my work when I was younger ("but it's so BORING!")  This  
is why I started writing computer books.   Now that I'm older I'm OK  
with it.  I've found plenty of subtle creativity and style even in  
less conversational tech writing -- and I still have writing on the  
side when I'm feeling oppressed as a writer.

Laura
dry rhetoric on toast

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Laura Lemay     Killer of Trees     lemay % lne.com    lemay % gmail.com
http://www.lauralemay.com                     http://blog.lauralemay.com
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On Oct 18, 2006, at 4:02 AM, Al Geist wrote: