As a technical writer by trade, attention to detail is a necessity, as is understanding the audience. The C-Suite wants to know how network observability helps the bottom line while the network administrator wants to find the gremlins in the system, traffic bottlenecks, and know where to troubleshoot. My day job is writing for those audiences, in the style and format dictated by my employer.
Useful skills for writing
I break down complex topics into easily digestible nuggets, and direct the network administrator to where in a yaml file they need to set a configuration to find the gremlins in their system and keep watch. There isn’t colorful language, or descriptive language.
It’s to the point. From the C-Suite to the network engineer to the junior engineer, they have a job to be done, and it is my responsibility to help them perform their job.
Pattern recognition, attention to detail, clarity. All useful and important skills to have as a technical writer. Some of that invariably seeps into my creative writing.
Feedback
I’m so used to corporate writing where it all sounds the same, on purpose, that it is really nice to know I still have my own voice.
From an editorial letter from a development edit:
First, I want to point out how easy it is to read your writing. You have a clear mastery and command of language, and a real talent for writing, period. You know how to build scenes. You are very good at placing the reader inside a world through sensory detail, evocative syntax, pacing, and tension.
Build scene, sensory detail, evocative syntax, pacing, tension.
Things generally not found in technical writing.
Manuscript language
…the language itself also lends itself to a pleasurable reading experience. Your syntax, diction, and rhythm feel both natural and slightly musical. This may be your love of music shining through, but you seem to have an instinctive ear for a sentence’s movement. There is a rhythm to the prose that carries the reader forward with clean momentum. The pacing makes the scenes feel satisfying to move through, and there is a pleasant lilt to the actual sound of the language.
Rhythm, instinctive ear for a sentence’s movement, pleasant lilt to the actual sound of the language.
A recent concern of mine has been that the symphonic structure of my manuscript doesn’t hold up now. There is a movement missing, and six-movement symphonies are extremely rare, and very difficult to pull off. That the language itself comes across as musical interests me. I hadn’t thought of the language itself as musical, only the structure.
Overall style
Overall, your style strikes me as sharp, smart, witty in places, and very clear. I would put you in conversation with Joan Didion — particularly in your unrelenting clarity, your eye for editorial detail, and the sharpness of your observations. If you have not read Play It as It Lays, I think you might find inspiration for your voice there.
Unrelenting clarity, eye for editorial detail, sharpness of observations.
All technical writer traits.
I still don’t know how to process being compared to Joan Didion.
Reclaiming and reviving my voice
Since my manuscript has been in a drawer for more than six years, I have wondered if I have lost my voice. I have wondered if I even remember my voice.
That was drive behind setting up the site public.gwynnemonahan.com as a place to keep my own voice active and fresh.
The more I re-read the editorial letter, and the manuscript notes, the more I realize the bones of my manuscript are good. The structure is there, the theme is there, but there is refinement to do, and a piece missing.
Only recently have I realized what a profound impact adopting my dog in 2020 has had on the direction of my life, and the conversations I have with myself. That is not in the manuscript, but it needs to be.