It baffles my mind the fact that people enjoy my writing. This is not modesty. I just don’t get how it’s possible.
Consider my background: Argentinian, only listened to the English language in popular TV shows (ok, maybe I watched too much Friends but I’m sure that’s not enough), and only read it in videogames dialogues for most of my life. It wasn’t until I was 17 that I read my first book in English (thank you J.K. Rowling), until I was 21 that I started speaking it regularly with people and it wasn’t until last year that I started WRITING it.
This doesn’t make sense to me, but somehow it’s happening. (Some) people enjoy my writing.
I’ll venture a guess on how it’s possible for a limited English speaker to be considered as “good” by native English speakers:
It’s not the way I write that they like, but the way I communicate my ideas.
This makes more sense since how you get people’s minds, how you understand which concepts work, and how you decide what needs to be said is not defined by specific words, rather than observation of people’s psychology and reactions. Writing and communicating is not the same, though we usually think so.
There’s poetry and romance in good writing. You need a wide vocabulary and an artistic vision to pull it off. It’s not just about the message, it’s also about the context.
Good communication, on the contrary, requires effectiveness, clarity and simplicity. Same as in speaking. It’s not just about the message, it’s also about persuasion.
Of course, you can be both (that’s what I’m striving to be). But it’s good to realize that each serve a different purpose and require different skills.
What’s your goal? Write better or communicate better? What are you doing to get there?
Carlos is an Argentinian philosophy lover, who surfs through life smiling, debating and reading. He blogs at OwlSparks, and is also co-founder of Untemplater, the guide to shatter the template lifestyle! Follow him on Twitter @carlosmic.
I agree. I will also say that to be a good writer, you have to know the difference between good, descriptive language and words that just fill up space. I’ve been more than guilty of doing this myself, and I’ve seen my writing suffer as a result. First, writers (any writing) is about communicating. Second, it’s about sharing. That’s it. There’s also the tendency to read things differently based on the way you communicate things. The edge where the writer is communicating and the reader is interpreting get blurred when we start talking about multiple ideas.
I had a long talk with Raven about some of this the other night, so I’m so glad to see this post.
“It’s not the way I write that they like, but the way I communicate my ideas.”
I do think that there’s a difference in the way you write and therefore communicate your ideas. Writing is a form of communication, so I think that how you write depends on the message you’re trying to send, the audience for whom you’re writing, and the platform. When I was working in corporate communications, it was all about business writing, where the prose had to be clear and concise. I had to tailor my voice and make that switch and, trust me, it was tough.
I’m a creative writer. I’ve always been fond of storytelling, the imagery, and the beautiful way words can be strung together to create poetry in a paragraph. This is my voice and how I write and how I communicate. Both forms of writing absolutely serve their purpose and both require a certain skill set, but I think it also has a lot to do with voice. I think voice shows the soul of the writer. For those who are more creative or poetic writers, it’s not about using flowery or overly descriptive language just for the sake of being overly descriptive, but for a love of language, a love of storytelling, and a love of sharing ideas through these words.
Basically, I do believe that different audiences and different platforms require different forms of written communication.
Another thought: I believe that there’s more to a writer than being a writer. That is, we’re more than writers. We’re thinkers, philosophers, and teachers. We’re scholars, idealists, and realists (yes, both). I think that’s why people enjoy your writing – because they see who you are behind the words.