I heard this expression from my mother and grandmother a great deal as a young woman. Both of them knew how to dress very well. But it was the 80′s (let’s face it – a real low point for fashion in many ways) and I was more concerned with how much gel it would take to make my bangs stay straight up in the air like that all day long.

It’s tough to write. Really. I do it because I need to – otherwise all those words floating around in my head have no place to go, and that gets annoying after a while. But perhaps I’m making it tougher than I have to.

Every few months, I re-read my Strunk and White, Elements of Style, like a novel. What a wonderful little book. Every time I take just a few minutes with it, I realize something new. Right now, I’m focused on an area I’ve never really thought about before, which is the instruction, “Do not explain too much”.

For a technical writer, and a wordy gal like myself, that’s a toughie. We’re paid to explain everything in all those teensy details, in a usable way. But for most business and non-fiction writing, it is not necessary to explain every little teeny thing. Isn’t all that explaining what makes most writing difficult?

By knowing exactly what to explain, and what not to, we are accomplishing that great thing that all writers aspire to do: to tell the story. Don’t tell the reader anything they don’t need to know, because you will just confuse the real message.

It’s true that when a word is wasted, it’s like that extra bow on the back of the dress that just doesn’t look right. People look at the bow, and not the woman wearing the dress. I’m here to tell you – because I’ve had that bow myself – that all it does is make your rear end look huge. I must remind myself to take off that extra word, remove the uneccesary sentence, and just wear the dress. Period. End of sentence. Absolutely. And that’s all I’m going to let myself say.

Editing is often more difficult than writing. In my first editing class, the instructor had a special pen that she used only for editing on paper drafts. It was an elegant fountain pen with beautiful jade green ink, and I’m sure the refills for it were quite expensive. If she thought that the powerful colour of the ink from that pen made the editing easier to take, she was right. It was so clear and positive, and when I looked at my assignment, I saw only writing that was vastly improved by her editing, rather than the toxic slash marks usually made in red by other editors.

I try to remember this while I edit other’s work. The job of an editor is not to judge, nor to completely re-write, or even to correct. It is to deliver the message. To clarify, to be a conduit for information, and to improve. Too often, editors come across like my terrifying third-grade teacher, who used her red pen with such force on my composition book that she occasionally ripped the paper with a stroke. It is no wonder that writers fear the editor, despise them, and avoid them at all costs.

In the age of the Internet, everyone has become a writer. This is a wonderful thing! Many lament the loss of pride in good grammar, good composition, and great writing style. But I’d rather be thrilled at the prospect of new information, from the minds of those who previously thought themselves as “non-writers”. Everyone has a story to tell, if only a short one, but all are interesting.

And so the editor’s job is not to put their own voice over that of what was written, but to gently nudge the author into a zone where they can reach more readers, by way of being more readable. Keeping the voice of the writer is the primary aim of my own editing efforts. The writer’s voice is what the reader wants to hear, not my own.

How is this voice kept, when the editing process can sometimes mean a dramatic change from one draft to another? It is important to remember that editing is a cooperative effort between the writer and editor. Today’s technology facilitates this very easily. (See future posts for technical details.)

The best way for a writer and editor to work together to maintain a writer’s voice in the final product is to keep communication the primary aim in the process. Plenty of tools exist to facilitate this, but none will work if the atmosphere is destructive. By maintaining a constructive atmosphere, the story will emerge, rather than the writing, and be told in the voice of the author.

When I started working on eLearning projects several years ago, I first encountered the acronym SME, pronouced, “smee”. The Instructional Designer kept referring to the smee on the project, and how they didn’t have enough time to attend project meetings. It took me half an hour to get brave enough to stick up my hand and ask, “Umm, excuse me, but what is a smee?”All the executive types in the meeting also turned to the designer and waited for her to answer. She turned a withering look on me and drawled, “the Subject Matter Expert”. I returned her look with a bright smile, and all the executives turned to nod at me, which made me just a tiny bit smug. (I never showed it, of course.)

A Subject Matter Expert is often brought in on a training or documentation project to provide the expertise on the topic that is being written about. In technology, this usually means an engineer, but sometimes it’s a marketing person who has pampered a product all the way from conception to the street sale, or a project manager who has all the info. (Everyone does their own thing best – I’ve only met one programmer who could explain complex technology in simple, clear language. He was also a gifted musician and composer, and something of a genius.)

I’ve known some great experts that were awesome to work with, who shared their knowledge without any reservations, and took real pleasure in teaching us about the topic. But unfortunately, I’ve also been on teams with some major jerks, who used their extensive technical knowledge to manipulate people and companies, often to no profit. The real Team Players had particular skills that made them easy and friendly to work with, and they were brought back over and over for projects because of this.

Here’s my list of the top seven things they did that made them so valuable;

1. Share the Vision of Success
   Everyone has had the boss or co-worker who enjoyed making us crazy with last minute changes, unreasonable demands, and pointless seguays. A valuable team member plays for the benefit of all, by knowing that if others don’t succeed, neither will they. They support their fellow team members by offering appropriate assistance, promptly returning all phone calls and email, giving plenty of grace to deadlines, and attending all meetings with a smile. We are all here to make each other look good.

2. Be One of the Guys
   Unless a specific reporting heirarchy has been put in place, don’t assume that others are going to dance to your tune. All of us are on a level playing field. You may be a PhD with 40 years experience, but that doesn’t mean that you can do all the jobs on the team. Respect that others are also highly-trained professionals who have the same stress, busy schedules, and deadlines as yourself. Relax and make friends.
3. Look for Ways to Learn
   If you want more gigs as a SME, it never hurts to learn from the others on a team, and see how your new knowledge or skills can crossover to other markets. If you are using new software to deploy the materials, detailed knowledge of that program might give you an edge on the next project. Preparation of your raw notes using a new format might make a graphic designer’s job easier. Use these free opportunities to gain more skills and broaden your scope.
4. Work on your Communication Skills
   It’s tough to break down complex processes into an easily-repeated soundbyte, but the more you can learn to think out loud, and talk to the writers about these complexities, the better they will be able to boil down all that needs to be communicated. To get over roadblocks in the process, sometimes just sitting around a conference table with a box of doughnuts and talking through it is enough to break out the finer points. There are some wonderful books and classes on the topic of communication, which are usually offered through professional development organizations like SkillPath Seminars.
5. Don’t Take it Personally
   Once drafts have been submitted, or you think you’ve told the writer all they need to know to graduate from MIT, don’t be surprised if what they write is not quite on the money, or they have chopped out sections that you think are important. It’s your job to know the product inside and out, but it is the writer’s job to know the reader inside and out. This may mean that information is re-prioritized and re-organized significantly by the time it reaches the user. This is just part of the process, and has no reflection on you or how you explained it to them. If there is an error, that is a different story – be certain that you approach them immediately (and with a team attitude), and discuss it until you feel everything is clear and correct.
6. Participate in Focus Groups and User Testing
   Once the product of your efforts has reached a second or third draft stage, the most clever organizations usually want to perform some sort of user testing. Sometimes this is done using focus groups, whereby a group of people who have never heard of your company sit down and have a look at what your team has produced, and tell you how usable it is by the average Joe. A SME has a tremendous opportunity to learn how to improve their contribution to the team by listening to what the users say. Is the product too complicated? Too simple? Not enough features? The SME can take this back to R&D and help to develop the next product using this information.
7. Follow-Up After the Project
   Very often, once the project has wrapped up, there are speaking and training events scheduled, and launch parties, and conferences, and more ad nauseum. It’s always nice to attend the hospitality suite, but some of the less glamorous training events can really help to push the results of the project over the top. The SME who is not afraid to get his hands dirty always looks like the hardest working guy on the team, whether that is true or not.

While you may not be the software engineer who’s also a gifted composer, you can always be a friendly, down-to-earth, multitasking generous expert who is easy to work with. Play your cards right and the team might even buy you a beer at the end of it all. Or better yet, hire you on the next time there’s a great project going on in your virtual neighbourhood.