atw: Creativity (WAS Apart from using Word 2002, what else am I doing wrong?)

So far in this discussion, I thought Steve and I were on the same track. But
now our tracks are diverging rapidly.

I didn't see the thread you referred to from some months ago, Steve - I
haven't been a regular on this list but have left and returned a few times. 

The debate's now moved to the nature of creativity - and whether tech
writing is or can be creative. Your argument seems to be that something
that's subject to rules can't be creative. Is that what you're saying? 

This is an extraordinarily hard subject to discuss, because - by its nature
- creativity is so hard to pin down. However, what I can say is that my
experience of technical writing seems to be totally different from yours.
I've read and used many, many manuals. Sometimes the writers seem incapable
of putting themselves in a reader's shoes and describe everything in terms
that make sense to *them* but don't seem to relate at all to what *I* want
to do. Other writers cover the individual steps clearly but make it so hard
to find what you need that you give up in frustration. Others make it
unnecessarily hard work or unbelievably boring. Still others, on the other
hand, make it a joy to read the manual and even inspire you with enthusiasm
about the product. What metric are you talking about that could explain, or
measure, the difference?

I like to think, when I'm writing a manual, or part of one, that I'm
creating a conversation between a designer and a user in which I have to be
able to get inside the heads of both - one at a time. It may take many goes
to achieve anything like clarity, but occasionally I do and get the
satisfaction of the "aha" that, to me, calls for the C word. 

If my picture of technical writing were anything like the one you describe,
I would never have taken it up. 

Howard



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