Writing versus Know-how
Posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2003
Scott on Writing: Technical Know-How is Important, but Not Paramount
More fuel for the ongoing Celebrity Tech Writer Death Match between “good writing” and “technical expertise,” this latest bid for the former comes from a technical author with a fair amount of cred, by the looks of things. Nice thing is, he doesn’t say one is better than the other — just that one edges the other out in a fight.
I believe both are, in fact, complementary: tech knowledge can’t be adequately shared without good writing skills, and even the best writer in the world will have trouble stringing a simple sentence together without knowing something about the tech.
Still, if there can be only one, I’ll agree with the technical author and take Good Writing for $500. Why? Because good writing skills are more painful to acquire than tech skills and, in some cases, even more painful to practice. I know this, for myself, from personal experience, as well as from other writers’ personal accounts. I know I’ve become immune to the perception of pain over the years, as anyone with above average skills would, but that doesn’t make the nature of writing well any less painful.
Yeah, I’m dramatizing a bit, but the expressions I see on people’s faces when they know they have to write something seems to give it credence.