Technical Writers May Be the Future of American Literature
A professor argues
that technical writers are the future of American literature. Utah Valley State College English professor Scott Hatch says that the great American literature of the early 20th century was penned by journalists such as Ernest Hemingway, but in the future it is the technical writers who have the best training to be novelists.
Technical writing didn't exist 50 years ago, but like journalism or copy writing, it provides a "great, practical, roll-up-your-sleeves" practice to creative writing, said Scott Hatch Tuesday night to a dozen members of the Intermountain Chapter of the Society of Technical Communicators.
Before becoming an academic, Hatch was a technical writer in the software industry.
He also writes poetry. Signature Books this year published his collection of poems, "Mapping the Bones of the World."
During his presentation Tuesday, Hatch alternated reading his poetry and sharing his ideas about technical and creative writing.
And there isn't much of a difference between writing forms, he said.
He tells his students to "observe, observe, observe with all your senses. And document."
Good writing, regardless of whether it's poetry or technical, is precise and clear.
"I think in the technical writing world, we are trying to create a one-to-one correspondence to reality," Hatch said. "In poetry, that one-to-one is paramount as well, but it doesn't end there. That is the gateway" to transcendental ideas.
"I think technical writing is probably in some ways, in many important ways, a better education for a creative writer than creative writing," he said.
In class, Hatch does not assign readings from Microsoft or Adobe manuals.
The manuals are tedious and he's afraid they will discourage would-be technical writers from entering the field.
"Although, that might convince them, 'Hey, there is a place in the world for me. I can make a difference,'" Hatch said, and the audience members laughed as they considered examples of poor writing.
Instead, Hatch requires students read "Young Men and Fire," by Norman Maclean, author of "A River Runs through It."
The book is about a 1949 wildfire in rural Montana that left 13 firefighters dead or severely burned.
Maclean started the book nearly 30 years after the fire, yet critics admired its thoroughness.
Hatch believes the book is "good solid writing."
It's an interesting theory. We've interviewed many journalists and at least one technical writer who said that their profession was the best training for writing a novel because of the discipline they had from always meeting deadlines. Because getting yourself in front of your computer and writing every morning is really the most important thing. If you can't write regularly, you'll never be published, no matter how much talent you have.
