So you think you know technical writing
Occasionally, I like to give myself a little emotional hug by calling myself a professional author. Although technically (ha!) it is true, my average day at work is not what I thought it would be.
When I was a teenager composing angsty poetry, I thought a writer rolled out of bed, had their coffee, then switched on their computer and their inspiration, and just wrote. All day, maybe with some comfort breaks.
When I got my first tech writing job, reality immediately slapped me in the face, and I quickly learned what technical writing isn’t. It isn’t:
1. Writing alone
Mental images of me typing away on my keyboard in a quiet forest cabin evaporated almost immediately. Not just because I don’t have a cabin - but because I never actually work alone.
As a tech writer, your job is to translate a technical product to be easily perceived by its user. An actual translator has a similar goal, and to achieve it, they interact with parties trying to communicate with each other. The same goes for you.
You constantly interact with others: software engineers, QA engineers, product managers, UX designers and researchers, even your own readers, if you’re lucky. This ensures you understand the product and the user’s needs as well as possible. All this, so that you can serve your reader best.
2. Writing non-stop
That same mental image of me in a cabin included a non-stop clatter of the keyboard because of course, as an author, I thought all I would do was write.
Then I learned that in fact, you stop. A lot. You stop to test the solution to make sure it works and you’re doing it justice. You stop to research, understand the underlying concepts, compare industry standards, maybe review competitors. You stop to think, plan out the document’s structure, and decide on your approach to it. You stop to question your life choices while searching for another synonym for the word “explore”.
All this helps you prepare so that when you do actually write, you are in the best place to do so.
3. Writing more
This one hits especially hard for those of us who were taught the value of fluff by the minimum word count requirement of university papers and overly descriptive Russian novels.
In tech writing, the best you can do is write less. The goal of your documentation is not to show off your technical vocabulary, overwhelm your reader with details, or showcase your mastery of if-clauses. The goal is to deliver clear, unambiguous, and actionable information your reader needs.
So you write, then you write some more, and then you cut, edit, and shorten until the end of days to make your content reader-friendly.
As expected, the reality of technical writing is unlikely to match the serene picture you may have built in your head. You’ll never write alone, you’ll stop often, and you’ll be grateful when your day involves writing anything at all.
Do all authors have several browser windows with an unholy number of open tabs? If yes, this might be the only thing I thought a writer did that turned out to be true. The variety, however, makes me love my job even more.