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| Sometimes I find it funny how I get away using vaguely relevant images for some of these headers. Teehee |
Writing is rather important in the world. Information needs to be recorded, messages need to be sent, stories need to be written and blog posts need to be published. (Usually at about 11PM...) As a result, it should come as no surprise that editing and feeback from other people is a fairly important part of the process.
Writing. Editing. Words! Thoughts. Speech. I dunno. Can I yell out more random words and pretend it's worth reading? Probably not, ah well. Fun part of being one's own editor is deciding that writing apparent gibberish is funny and worth leaving in a blog post, though my apparent lack of sleep may have something to do with the thought process behind that.
In any case, tonight at about 7pm while I was begging my exhausted brain for something to blog about, inspiration came in the form of my good friend Angela Pellobello, AKA ChesireSorrows, asking me if I would be kind enough to read through something she had wrote and provide her with feedback. Considering how her sudden arrival was a blessing to my brain like crutches are to the crippled, I was more than happy to oblige. (though I probably would have obliged anyways.)
So how is this in any way relevant? Well, it got me thinking about how important editing and feedback is to writers of any method or format. My girlfriend writes reports about environmental conditions which have to be read through, errors identified and then it gets sent back to be fixed so that the client is happy with the professional result. (Irony: I misspelled professional wrong the first time I wrote that sentence.) I write blog posts bi-daily and ask the readers for feedback and opinions in every single one, and have yet to not listen to a request. (By the way, if you're wondering where the Zombie Apocalypse article is, wait for Halloween.) I also used to edit every single post that JovialJman wrote before sending it out, and would meticulously help him by explaining his errors over Skype. (when we weren't laughing like schoolboys.), and my friend Angela on the very odd occasion asks for my input on her writing adventures, which is always a fun thing to do.
As it turns out, writing is not the easiest thing. For one, feedback is EXTREMELY important, even more so than simple editing, for one reason. You can't write for other people, if other people don't tell you if it's good or not. As my Grade 12 English teachers put it after a certain creative writing essay didn't quite reach the usually scratch, there is such a thing as "self-indulgent writing", which is to say, your writing is subjectively good, rather than objectively good. (Ie: "I like it", instead of, "They should like it").
While there's nothing wrong with self-indulgent writing, it's not very good writing something only you understand when other people are supposed to understand it. That's sort of like speaking French to English pre-schoolers because you think it sounds cool. It might to you, but the pre-schoolers think you're a jackass. As such, having someone around to help give you the outside perspective on what you write is a rather integral part of the process if you hope to write anything that is in any way actually worth being read by someone. It's happened once to me where I've written a short story, only to be told that it made no sense... Namely in Grade 12... By my English teachers. As it turned out when I read it a week later, having been so meticulous in my planning, I'd become very familiar with the concepts of the story, to the point that I was writing references to things that weren't actually in the story.
Not to say vague, unexplained references can't be fun plot devices, but when you're writing a 450 word story and you leave so many hooks open that the best guess people can make is that some Russians in a snowy place found a dead family in some snow but the child survived, you've made a mistake... or several. Especially when your planning was filled with theatrical references and idea's and a list of symbolic sentences to use. Lesson learnt.
In any case, as with most things in life, being able to make something relateable to people other than yourself is a rather important thing to know how to do when your business involves writing articles every couple days. I find the most effective way to avoid writing subjectively is to ask yourself three questions.
Is it a commonly understood concept?
If not, can it be googled?
Would I understand what I was saying if I was five?
Simply put, it needs to be changed or explained better if you can't say yes to 2 out of 3. I will point out that those rules are somewhat focused on online writing though. For book/story writing, I would suggest aiming for a 2 out of 2 score, otherwise, change or explain better. Again, as always, moderation applies. If you're writing the manual to rocket science, you are not going to write the manual to Grade 1 maths. Consideration of target audience, among other things, is also an important part of writing. In terms of TCSA, this blog is designed to be a fun, entertainingly informative place where you find out some interesting new things, preferably while having a laugh or two. As such, JovialJman and myself attempt to make the articles as easy to understand and relatable as we can for whoever may be reading. (Though our rather free-form choice of topic does make that slightly impossible to achieve, but "the glory is in the effort" I tend to say.)
In any case, I shall wrap up this article by saying simply, that without you guys chipping in and piping up, TCSA can't know if we're doing right or not. Things like making the background colour less bright so that you don't go blind and trying to be less serious (not always possible, sorry), are things that have been asked of us, as well as a couple topics which have been suggested as well. We enjoy the interaction with you guys, and appreciate it when you like our Facebook page or share the articles, since it tells us that we're doing something right for you guys, which is kind've the point. (Not as well as actually being told what exactly was liked about the article, but you take can get. Heehee)
In any case, that's all I can really say on the importance of editing and feedback. If you have any feedback, feel free to give it to us down in the comments below, or via Facebook/Twitter as we love to hear from you guys. (Heehee) Of course, do be sure to share this post with any writer type friends of yours, as they may find it an interesting read or have something to say on the subject themselves. And if you yourself enjoyed the post and would like to read more like it, then do be sure to like the Official TCSA Facebook page and/or follow us via Twitter using the associated button on the bar to the left so that you can get all the latest posts, as they're published. Regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time to read this post; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again soon.
Happy reading my friends.
