Re: Tech writers as story-tellers (LONG)

Subject: Re: Tech writers as story-tellers (LONG)
From: Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2000 19:58:18 -0800

Michael West wrote:
>
> I often think about this remark, and I think he's right. If
> a company hires me to write user-assistance material
> for their products, the basic story that I need to tell
> is the tale of how these products can make their users
> more productive, more effective, and more confident
> in achieving their business goals.

That's one story. But you are also telling stories about what sort
of people your readers are, the places technology has (or should
have) in their lives, and what the company is like. These stories -
and others - are implicit in both the writing and the design of your
documents. If you ignore consciously thinking about these
considerations, they still exist - you just abandon any conscious
control of them.


--
Bruce Byfield, Outlaw Communications
Contributing Editor, Maximum Linux
604.421.7189 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com

"When Laertes heard his Dad has been stabbed in the arras,
He came racing back to Elsinore tout suite, hotfoot from Paris,
And Ophelia, with her Dad killed by the man she wished to marry,
After saying it with flowers, committed hari-kari."
- Adam McNaughton, "Our Hamlet" ("The Three Minute Hamlet")

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