On the art and skill of writing

What Are You Giving the World When You Write?

I don't want you to think too much about your writing. Leave the thinking to me, for overthought can be as much a bane as a boon (and that'll be the subject of my next piece). You go ahead and dash out your stuff with passion and immersion.

So, most oddly and kicking myself, I implore you to stop reading further and return to your writing.

However, if you get sucked in, you can hear this line of thought and then send it to the back of your mind, where it may do some good.

There are essentially three things your writing can give humans and, perchance, aliens — pleasure, knowledge, or wisdom.

Pleasure is popular as a subject for writers and readers. There's nothing wrong with providing emotional delight. You may make us laugh at our foibles, soften our hearts with poems on love and nature, or arouse us with gentle erotica. Feelings are crucial to a healthy life and inseparable from being human.

But it's challenging to find new sources of entertainment and pleasure. Our primitive instincts haven't changed much for millennia. We still guffaw when someone walks into a wall, and we melt at a baby's tender touch. Writing something that the seasoned reader will find fresh and enchanting takes a special connection with the symbolic human heart and our instincts.

The joy we get from pleasure writing fades with time as originality turns into a trope and the language becomes archaic.

Knowledge is easier to share as it is straightforward to acquire and offer if we apply ourselves. It is the second-largest category of writing. Facts, data, research, and news are the bread and butter of the knowledge writer. So is the teaching of a skill, as it imparts knowledge of a sort.

Humanity realises the value of this genre for its survival and well-being and more reliably rewards it, compared to the rare fiction bestseller among thousands published daily.

With time, most knowledge, if not all, is disproven or superseded, whether it is Genesis or Newton's Laws.

Wisdom is the hardest to contribute, for you need to have some in the first place. Or at least what'll be recognised as such by most who come across it, which is no mean feat given our species' fractious and confused intelligence.

So, if you're blessed with an insight you're convinced has excellent value, you must share it, for it may be the most powerful gift you can give us. And new ideas, whether entirely original or somewhat novel, are valuable enough to be called wisdom.

But be reconciled to the reality that only a handful of people will read this type of writing, for example, Plato or Gandhi, but the broader effect is so salubrious for the species that their writings become a byword for our best selves.

Wisdom writing lasts the longest, as we should expect. The Greek philosophers, the Gita, and other works from two to three millennia ago continue to inspire and improve us.

Opinion pieces are a tad challenging to place. They will give pleasure to those in your camp but pain to others. They may educate us sometimes when they support the position with facts, although we should beware of misused statistics. On rare occasions, opinion could elevate into wisdom. But it is best to minimise opinion in your writing and favour one of the clear and healthy categories above.

If you can wrap wisdom in the garb of pleasure and garnish it with knowledge, you'll hit the mother lode of writing. It will delight now, educate for years, and improve forever. Shakespeare, anyone?

Final Thoughts

While you think about how your writing improves the world, I'll consider mine for a bit, if you don't mind.

My poetry gives pleasure, as far as I can see.

My architecture articles are all about knowledge and skills and are my most popular writing.

Few read my philosophical work, but you may find some wisdom in it and expand its ripples.

And how about this piece?

Was it a pleasant read, and did it give you pleasure? Only you can tell me, so please do.

It provides little knowledge, so on that score, it scores nothing.

If someone reads this three hundred years from now, I quite shamelessly think it will still impart wisdom, as content creators will yet abound, and some may not have considered how their works work.

All in all, it's a worthwhile contribution, so I'll click Publish.

Happy writing!

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