I’ve ruminated about this issue for years too. Here’s what’s funny: with the recent rise of blogging, I’ve had a chance to read many peoples’ views about writing. The dichotomy that always pops up is while tech writing is my day job, real writing occurs on my time. Like you said: pure and not pure, and on some level this has always offended me.

I’ve thought to myself, tech writing is so far from creative writing, why would you even assume there’s even but the flimsiest connection. And why would so many people who love writing-for-writing’s-sake go into tech writing as a career. To me, a technical writer is better described as an engineer, tech support person, business analyst, lab technician, etc. who is purely concerned with communicating information in his or her field of expertise.

Even this, I suppose, is a pure statement.

Peace - D

Useful + Enjoyable = Great writing

Thank you for stating the obvious so clearly. I’ve been trying to explain what I do in terms of fiction and non-fiction, lumping poetry and marketing writing into my definition of ‘fiction’ and technical and business writing into ‘non-fiction’. With marketing writing there’s clearly a lot of overlap - product brochures and advertising may fit into my ‘fiction’ category, but product data sheets and the like clearly fit into ‘non-fiction’. In your paradigm, marketing writing fits in the ‘meant to be used’ camp, with perhaps some overlap into ‘meant to be enjoyed’. Yours is a much easier classification than fiction/non-fiction.

I also like how you debunk the ‘noble’ writing myth, and face the ‘fiction writing is enriching’ dragon head on.

Thanks

Any suggestion as to a phrase that will help me to make that point?

Great post by the way.