Writing Right with Dmitri: To Do Good and Communicate

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Writing Right with Dmitri: To Do Good and Communicate

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But to do good and to communicate forget not…

Hebrews 13:16, Authorised Version

I don't care what that meant in 1611. (Modern translations talk about sharing.) I've always used that quote to remind me of how important communication is. After all, communication is sharing, and you can be generous with your thoughts and ideas, just as you can with your material goods.

Why is it often easier to ask for help than to try to do something yourself? Because asking for help, even around the house, requires communication. You have to explain what you need. Case in point: my dad.

'Honey, you're young and full of prunes…'

Baby Sister: 'Please…just tell me what you want. Leave out the long story.'

(Dad chuckling.) All he wanted was the newspaper, which he'd forgotten to get from the mailbox, way down the end of the walk. And he'd been on his feet all day. Dad did fine with communicating a simple need: in fact, he sort of overdid it. My sister was annoyed because of the Appalachian sweet talk, which would have worked fine on my aunt. Or me: I would have laughed at the 'full of prunes' business.

Most people think that writing instructions is easy. Try it and see. You'll either leave out a step, or tell the whole thing out of order, or – worst of all – go into so much bleedin' detail that the person you're instructing gets lost in the verbiage and comes out unable to remember what the question was. Cast in point: my dad again.

My mom: 'Go and teach the kid how to drive.'

Dad, as he and I sit in the family car: 'The automobile is run by an internal combustion engine. As gas is fed into the cylinders, it expands. The firing of the spark plugs ignites the expanded gas, forcing the pistons up and down….blah blah technobabble blah blah…'

After ten minutes or so: 'Now, what else do you need to know?'

Me: 'How do you start the car?'

Change of instructors followed.

Mom, as she and I sit in the family car: 'See this key? You put it in here. You pump the gas pedal, just a little, while you turn the key. See? The car is started. Now you can back the car out of the garage by putting it in reverse. But remember to open the garage door first.'

My mom. Practical. To her, a car was a thing that you put gas in, and it took you places. When it broke down, you took it to the 'shop' and said, fix it. To my father, it was a marvel of modern engineering worthy of study. Both were good drivers, but they had both learned so young they'd forgotten what it was like not to know how to do it.

My dad drove into town at the age of 16, because the government had decided you needed licences to drive. What a concept. When the sheriff's man looked at the vehicle, a farm truck with a huge load of baled hay, much wider than the truck itself, he whistled. On being informed by my grandfather that Dad had, indeed, driven this mess ten miles into town, the man turned around, went inside, and filled out the paperwork.

Fine, those who can, do. Those who can't yet, need a teacher. But good teachers aren't always easy to find. So it helps if those who aren't 'naturals' learn the basics of instruction. The key to getting what you know into someone else's head is figuring out how to tell the story. Instruction is about process.

Here are the main points:

  1. Break the process down into manageable steps.
  2. Use your imagination to figure out what someone who doesn't know needs to know to do what you're describing.
  3. Don't tell them anything else. Keep to the subject. Avoid long, fancy excursions into the 'for experts' category. (Save those for later.)
  4. Be positive and encouraging.
  5. Don't make lists.. (Unless they're useful references.) Quash your obsession with 'completeness'.

One more thing: don't overqualify every statement. History lessons are ruined by historians who are aware of every exception to every statement. They start qualify each thing they say with 'except…' and 'of course…' and suchlike. Don't do that to a beginner. Don't lie, but keep it simple.

Want to see an example of how this works? Try my ridiculous set of instructions called How to Make a High-Tech Pompom. Sure, it's silly. But you know what? Read it, and you'll know how to use one of those plastic pompom makers, should you ever want to. You also might see that writing instructions can be fun.

The key to communication is, oddly, imagination. You've got to put yourself in the other person's place, and ask: what don't they know? What do they want to know? (Not: what do I want to tell them?) What will be an effective way to help them know that?

All storytelling is process. And every description of a process is a narrative. Practice writing instructions as a way to strengthen your storytelling skills. Go read FWR's story Lost in France, and see how much a road trip narrative is about process. (Further installments follow, including the conclusion in this week's issue.)

Try writing some instructions at the bottom of this page. Maybe we can learn something.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

27.06.16 Front Page

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