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Archive for the ‘journalism’ Category

Hunting for work space

Posted in Bruce Byfield, journalism, office space, Personal, Uncategorized, work, working, writing, tagged , , , , , , on October 2, 2012| 1 Comment »

The last time I worked in an office, I couldn’t wait to work from home. I had lost what little tolerance I ever had for endless meetings, and HR managers dragging everyone from their keyboards to play morale-building games of charades. Yet no sooner had I started working from home that I started looking for other places where I could sometimes work. The search continues, eight years later.

The trouble with working from home, especially when you live alone, is that you can easily spend days with no human contact. Yet finding the right work space elsewhere is difficult, too, since I would prefer to walk or cycle, and, although I want people around me, I don’t want so much noise that work becomes impossible.

Less than twenty meters from my door is a gazebo surrounded by flowers. Unfortunately, it’s in a courtyard where children are playing at most times of the day. Their parents are usually in the courtyard, too, idly chatting, and while I’m glad enough to talk to them when we meet at other times, I have been unable to convince them that when I’m carrying my laptop I prefer not to talk.

The same problem exists with the pool in my townhouse complex. I’d love to sit by the water on a deck chair, and dive in to do a few lengths while I’m working out how to word something, but, when I try, neighbors persist in asking what I’m doing.

Less than a kilometer away, there’s a rec center. It has an open area full of tables, which is often used by ESL tutors to meet their students. Unfortunately, it’s right beside the gym, where troops of adults and children are constantly passing. Also, every now and again, the staff decides to discourage people using the tables, so I can never be sure that the tables are available.

Not much further on are coffee shops. Unfortunately, one is too quiet to bother with. Another is wedged into a corner of the supermarket. A third has glass down one side, and by early afternoon feels as comfortable as a greenhouse, even on cloudy days.

Besides, I feel like a dilettante working at a coffee shop – and more of a bit of a freeloader, even if I buy something every couple of hours.

The best solution I’ve found is to sit in the shade under a tree in the local park, where I can hear the nearby stream and watch people pass on the sidewalk. However, when I do that, I usually drowse, leaving my work half-done.

Usually, the off-chance that I might get work done in any of these locations seems to small to gamble on. Instead, I stay by my work station, half-convinced that I am missing something somewhere, being productive, but convinced that by staying I’m one day closer to a curmudgeonly and lonely old age. Yet even that seems a brighter prospect than returning to an office job.

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Receiving compliments

Posted in Bruce Byfield, comedy, humor, journalism, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , , , on August 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I never have learned how to accept compliments gracefully. With insults, I know where I”m at; self-defense kicks in and I turn icily cold and dryly cutting. But one enthusiastic word, even from a lover, and a blush warms my cheeks and I start to stammer.

Part of my difficulty is that compliments are rarely delivered at the time of whatever they are praising. Meanwhile, I’ve moved on to some other project. I’m no longer engaged by whatever is being complimented, so much so that it could almost have been done by someone else.

That is especially true when someone compliments a piece of my writing. The facts that I crammed into my short-term memory and the arguments to structure them are no longer there, having been nudged aside by the facts and arguments for the next piece that I’m doing. I imagine that writers on tour to promote a book they finished a year ago must feel the same way.

Another part of my difficulty is that I am convinced that compliments are not healthy for me. I know that those delivering the compliment are being enthusiastic or polite, but part of me regards their kind words as the equivalent of a plate of cinnamon buns that’s being pushed under my nose – however enticing, the compliments seem unhealthy, like far too much of a good thing.

But the main reason I squirm is because of a bit of my own hypocrisy. From all my childhood heroes from King Arthur to Robin Hood, I’ve learned that modesty about my own accomplishments is a virtue (an attitude that makes my years as a marketing consultant more than a little inexplicable).

Yet, at the same time, I can’t help hoping that someone is noticing those accomplishments. Receiving a compliment forces me to confront this contradiction – and, since I am even poorer at lying to myself than I am at receiving a compliment, the whole experience leaves me in confusion.

While part of me thinks that I shouldn’t enjoy the compliment, another part of me is secretly wallowing in delight. Since the two impulses are completely irreconcilable, what I really want to do is make my escape as quickly as possible.

Tell me that learning to accept compliments is part of being an adult, and I would agree with you. But in practice, I’ve never achieved complacency. The best I can manage is a “Thank you” that would rival the Duke of Wellington for curtness, followed by a quick change of subject.

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My answers to 10 common negative comments about my writing

Posted in Bruce Byfield, journalism, negative comments, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , on August 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Generally, I limit the time I spend responding to negative comments about the articles I write. For one thing, by the time an article is published – even on the web – I’m already thinking about the next piece I want to write.

For another, such discussions tend to be endless. There’s usually little common ground in our basic assumptions and motivations, so if I leaped into the discussions the way I’m sometimes tempted to, I wouldn’t meet my next deadlines. Generally, if I respond at all, I limit myself to two emails, then leave the discussion. Personal attacks may sometimes sting, but I don’t feel any overpowering need to verbally pummel anyone else to the ground.

Besides, over the years, I’ve heard the same comments so many times that they bore me. However, if I were to respond to the most common negative comments that I receive, here’s what I would say:

1. “You’re wrong!”: Disagreeing with you is not automatically wrong or evil. If you see a factual error, by all means mention it, especially if it is part of a logical chain of thought that falls apart without it. But general issues, with multiple aspects and causes are a matter of interpretation, and you don’t disprove a viewpoint simply by condemning it.

2. “This is garbage!”: In all humility, probably not. While editors have schedules to meet, they are rarely going to publish anything that is not competently written and argued. Most of the times, calling something worthless only shows that you don’t understand the distinction between your opinion and intrinsic standards of argument and writing.

3. “You’re a troll!”: A troll is not just somebody who expresses an opinion with which you disagree. Unlike a typical troll, a journalist is not anonymous. A journalist may respond to readers’ comments, but they have no particular interest in controversy, because the time they spend responding is time they could be writing something for which they can be paid. Moreover, unlike a troll, if a journalist wants to continue working, their statements need to have some tenuous connection to fact.

4. “You’re just saying that to get page views”: Sorry, you’re confusing me with an editor. Past page views may determine whether an editor will accept a story on a particular topic. Otherwise, though, what a journalist wants is a story that interests them long enough to write it.

5. “That’s an opinion!”: Opinion pieces have a long tradition in journalism. Often, they are called columns or blogs. Generally, opinion pieces have a lower standard of evidence because they are talking about more abstract things than a news story, such as trends or impressions.

6. “I’ll complain to the editor!”: Unless you can prove that a piece is libelous – that is, false and deliberately meant to harm – don’t bother. The expression of an opinion with which you disagree is not libelous. Anyway, if an editor continues to publish articles expressing an opinion you dislike, chances are that for everyone who objects to the opinion, there’s one or two people expressing approval of it.

7. “That story makes them money”: Actually, in modern journalism, content is almost completely divorced from profit. Ads, not content, is what makes money in modern journalism. In theory, you could threaten to boycott an advertiser, but in practice you would need a lot of agreement to persuade a company to pull its ads from a particular site or magazine.

8. “I’m going to write an article to get the truth out”: Good luck with that. Besides strong writing skills, you need to understand the ethics of what you are doing, and show a willingness to work with editors by being on time and accepting corrections and suggestions. You also have to find an editor who needs more contributors and can afford to pay them. I’m not saying that you won’t succeed, but I will say that if writing were as easy as many people imagine, far more people would be doing it for a living. In the free software field, for example, no more than a dozen people manage the trick.

9. “You’ve got a vendetta!”: Some journalists occasionally do, but most couldn’t be bothered. For the most part, their interest lies in reporting what people are thinking, or what they should know. They may pursue a story if they perceive untrustworthiness or a lack of response, but, believe it or not, most journalists see themselves as pursuing the truth. Getting personal doesn’t fit with their self-image or their busy schedules.

10. “You”re lying!”: Get serious. Do you honestly believe that someone who publishes several articles a week could get away with outright lies? They would be unemployed in a matter of days. The statements you object to may be inaccurate, or, more likely, based on a different interpretation of events from yours, that’s all.

I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve heard that Richard Stallman has a number of Emac macros available at a keystroke so that he can make a standard argument without having to type it out again. I suppose this blog entry is a rough equivalent. So, in future, if anyone gets a message from me with this URL followed by a #5 or #9 or whatever, they’ll know that I’ve heard what they’re saying before.

But, then again, I’ll probably be too busy to do even that much. I’ve heard rumors that, beyond the keyboard there’s something called life, and I’d rather explore that spend my days satisfying people who only want an argument.

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Writing opinion pieces

Posted in Bruce Byfield, commentaries, editorials, journalism, opinion pieces, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , , , on July 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »

To my bemusement, I realized recently that over a third of the articles I do in a month are opinion pieces. Back in 2004, when I first started full-time journalism, I wouldn’t have believed that was possible. I believed then that I had no talent for editorials, and the thought of doing one intimidated me so much that I barely knew how to begin.

My background as an academic and a technical writer had a lot to do with that belief. Ask me to summarize or quote accurately in an news story or interview, and I could draw on my experience writing academic papers. Ask me to write an accurate how-to, and I could depend on my experience writing manuals and tutorials. Even a review didn’t seem impossible, because, while it gave an opinion and was shaped by an opinion, the opinion was based on clear facts.

But a commentary on free software-related events? That left me much more exposed. I had only been involved in the community for a few years, and I was all too aware that dozens of people –maybe hundreds or thousands – had more experience than me. So why would anyone be interested in my opinion? I’d be shredded as soon as I opened my mouth.

Besides, years in a university English department had conditioned me to avoid giving a firm opinion whenever possible. I had got used to softening my opinions with words like “almost” or “seems” to lessen the possibility of an attack.

Fortunately, writing at Linux.com and hanging out on its IRC channel every day, I had some strong role models. The late Joe Barr was the master of the attack piece – of angry diatribes full of sarcasm and humor, the kind that is read less for insight than for entertainment, like a review of a play by Dorothy Parker (“And then, believe it or not, things get worse. So I shot myself.”). By contrast, Robin “roblimo” Miller, the senior editor could write editorials just as forceful, but milder in tone and more thoughtful.

These models were important to me, because, when I came to write my first opinion pieces, I had some idea of what I could manage. While I admired Joe Barr’s expression of anger, I knew there was no way that I could match it for more than a sentence or two. I would have to assume a persona that was mostly foreign to me, and would feel foreign – maybe dishonest – to me.

By contrast, my academic background made the thoughtful editorial seem a more attainable goal. While writing academic papers, I had discovered I had a knack for getting to the core of a matter and stripping away irrelevancies. I knew how to anticipate opposing views, and disarm them by answering them before anyone else could make them. I knew that, even if I didn’t always respect opposing views, reporting them fairly made me appear to do, and that the effort improved my own argument. I might still shoot off the occasional one-liner caked in sarcasm, but, most of the time, I had a better chance of managing a thoughtful tone rather than an outraged and witty one.

What I didn’t anticipate was how my style would add to my voice. My model for style was George Orwell, with clarity and simplicity my main goals. In particular, I got into the habit of ruthlessly deleting all the qualifiers that academia had taught me to use to soften my opinions. Add a tone that is partly a reflection of my own speech-therapy influenced conversation and partly the influence of Orwell’s very English tone, and the result is that I come across as more forceful than I initially realized.

This combination of habits and tone meant that, as I ventured into writing opinion pieces, I had a more distinctive result than I realized at first. Not everyone liked it, of course: to this day, I still have critics who claim that my ability to look at all sides of a discussion mean that I will write anything, even for shock value (not true; although I do sometimes write to explore the possibility of an idea). Others find my tone patronizing (usually when they disagree with me). At times, too, I have been called disloyal to free software, or worse.

I can see where these views originate, so I don’t feel much need to argue against them, except to say that they have as much to do with readers’ expectations as anything I actually do.

At any rate, over the years, I have grown much more accustomed to hostile responses than I was when I started writing opinion pieces. If people disagree with me (or with what they think I am saying), they are at least reading me, which means that editors will pay for my opinions.

As for myself, I’m content to express an opinion that I either hold or am considering. So long as I can do one of these two things as thoroughly as possible, writing an opinion piece has long ago lost its terror to me. I sometimes need half a draft to know just what my opinion on a subject happens to be, but opinion pieces have long since settled into being a familiar part of my repertoire.

At times, I can even imagine that I have a talent for them. When Carla Schroder tweeted, “Bruce Byfield writes calm, thoughtful, lengthy articles that somehow ignite mad passions and flame wars,” I couldn’t have been more satisfied. That is exactly what an opinion piece should be and do, and someone, at least, was saying that I was succeeding in doing exactly what I was trying to do.

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Writing a list story

Posted in Bruce Byfield, journalism, list stories, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , on April 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

List stories are one of the most heavily criticized forms of journalism. According to detractors, list stories show a lack of thought, and are simply a lazy way to produce an article. However, I believe that, with a little planning, list stories can be as legitimate a form as any other. They simply have different considerations from most types of journalism.

Not that the criticisms aren’t justified. The structure and logic of list stories are different from the typical story. Instead of offering an obvious path of development of the central idea, list stories are constantly starting over again.

It’s also perfectly true that list stories often feel easier to write than an in-depth story that builds on a single point. Instead, list stories rarely have room to go beyond the general. As a writer, you just start to get into the discussion when it’s time to move on to the next item in the list. Rightly or wrongly, this can feel much less demanding than sticking to one topic throughout the article.

Still, I like list stories – maybe because one of my strengths or weaknesses as a writer is that I’m always tempted to make lists. Instead of squeezing the lists into conventional paragraphs, sometimes it just seems easier to give in and acknowledge the point by putting list items into a bullet list or using sub-headings.

If nothing else, a story divided by bullet lists or sub-headings looks more approachable online. Its blocks of text look smaller because they are divided. There are fewer formidably long paragraphs, and readers have more natural places to pause and return to the article later. Particularly on-line, you have more chance of being read if you organize your thoughts in a list than a conventional story.

Besides, list stories are a good place to use random thoughts and observations that are too short to make stories in themselves. All you have to do is generate some related points to go along with them – which is easier than it sounds, because often one point suggests another.

Developing the story

The trick of writing a successful list story is the same as with any article. You need to find what William Goldman calls “the spine of the story:” The central, unifying idea that justifies talking about all the points in the same story. Without the spine, a list story is just as bad as critics contend that it always is. With the spine, a list story can be as meaningful as any other piece. State the central idea in the introduction, and you’re well on the way.

Then there’s the question of the points themselves. For the article to work, all the points in the story need to be as strong as possible. Since you don’t have much space for each point, any that are vague or obviously padding are going to stand out.

At the same time, for some reason — call it the unspoken numerology of popular culture – some numbers of list items seem to be more widely read than others, such as 7, 9, 11, or 12. Any fewer than seven items looks more like a teaser than a story, while some numbers, such as 6 or 8, simply look wrong somehow.

But, in reaching one of the magical numbers, you need to be careful to avoid padding. Instead, you need to think more deeply, or perhaps see if any of the existing list items is complex enough to be divided into more than one section. If so, as a bonus you have at least two items than can follow one another, the second maybe referring back to the first and thereby increasing the unity of the entire article.

Pay attention, too, to the order of the list items. I always think in terms of what I call “relay order,” based on the order of runners in a team race in track and field. Typically in a four-runner relay race, coaches would have the second fastest runner begin, followed by the third and the fourth and ending with the first. By approximating this order, you start off strongly and end strongest of all. The middle might sag a little, so you want to mix the stronger points with the weakest so that there isn’t a downward descent in interest.

By the time readers reach the end, the original statement of the unifying theme may have grown vague with the details, especially with a longer article. For this reason, a list item needs to end like any other story, with a re-emphasis of what you want readers to take away. Nor does it hurt to explain why what readers have just read is interesting or worthwhile.

 More than a list

Done thoughtfully, a list item is more than a collection of random thoughts. It may look simple and unassuming, but, behind the scenes, a conscientious writer needs to have a good idea of what the points add up to, and be ready to experiment with the order of items as they write. Often, you’re only know the most effective order after you write.

But that’s another part of what makes list items so suitable for online articles. Text editors and word processors are all about rearranging blocks of text – and, with list stories, you’ll have plenty of opportunities and needs for rearranging before you’re done.

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The horrors of year end summaries

Posted in Bruce Byfield, journalism, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, year end summaries, tagged , , , , , on January 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The turn of the year always leaves me relieved for two reasons. First, every time I go out, I don’t have to watch women exhausting themselves to feed dozens, and refusing all help. Second, most of the year end summaries are over and done with.

I admit that I’ve done my share of year end summaries. As a journalist, I find these stories are almost unavoidable, and I imagine I will do more of them in the future. If nothing else, they are relatively easy – if tedious – to write, which can be a relief at a time of year when I’m distracted by various social demands and low on ideas.

But although I try to find a theme or two for my summaries, so that they are not just a random collection of facts, I’m still uncomfortable about writing them. For me, the only thing worse than writing these stories are reading them.

What I object to is that these stories are the first effort at official history. I have no problem with reporting or reading individual stories as they happen. But selecting which stories are important – that I have a problem with.

I realize, of course, that proposing stories or taking suggestions from editors is itself a form of deciding what is memorable. Sometimes, when I think of the stories that I haven’t told, either because I was too busy or because an editor thinks them too dull or too hot to handle, I feel like Midas’ barber. You know – the one who, seeing his master cursed with donkey ears, dug a hole to whisper his secret to, because he had to tell someone.

However, I can more or less live with this daily selectivity as a necessity. After all, there just isn’t time to cover every story.

But year end summaries go one step further. Starting from the already selected daily news, they go one selection further. That makes them two removes from reality, an abstraction that is even more remote from what’s happening than an everyday story.

Even worse, year end summaries are the beginnings of official history. And, as anyone who has read George Orwell’s”Looking Back at the Spanish Civil War” is aware, official history slips easily into distortions and outright lies.

For example, when Expo 86 was held in Vancouver, there were mass evictions of the poor, and pointed questions asked about government spending priorities. But, after it was all over, the year end summaries proclaimed it a success that silenced all oppositions. Never mind that those of us who objected continued for years to boycott many people and companies who took part: drawing on those year end summaries, people now talk about the whole affair as a golden moment, unsullied by any complaints.

The same transformation has occurred already with the 2011 Winter Olympics. I remember several surveys that showed that, even after the fact, fifty percent of those living in the greater Vancouver area continued to object to the spectacle. Yet, now, less than two years later, mainstream journalists continue to tell how, despite some initial misgivings, residents were won over by the excitement and the Olympic spirit. Inconvenient facts like riots and protests are dealt with simply by not mentioning them.

Fortunately, writing about free and open source software for a variety of websites and magazines, I face almost no pressure to write feel-good stories, nor controversial ones. But, being aware of how easily year end summaries can become part of a corrupt process, I shy away from writing them. I don’t falsify my reactions, but I worry that, by writing such stories at all, I could be lending myself to a process of which I disapprove.

Just as I rarely read such stories, I can barely bring myself to write them. That’s why I’m always glad to see their season depart. Come January 1, for another eleven months, I don’t have to face the dilemma that they represent. Like the spectacle of women being expected (and  expecting themselves) to prepare a huge meal while everyone else socializes, for me year end summaries seriously diminish what whould otherwise be an enjoyable occasion.

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Seven differences between professional and amateur writers

Posted in Bruce Byfield, journalism, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , , on November 26, 2011| 2 Comments »

One LinuxWorld Expo, Maximum Linux and Linux Magazine had booths next to each other. Near the end of third day, as journalists lounged around the booths talking, a free software celebrity approached. “Look,” he said, singling out a single magazine from a display. “There’s my issue!”

He wasn’t talking about an issue featuring an interview with him. He was talking about an issue in which he had published a small and rather minor article.

The assembled journalists looked around, as embarrassed at this flash of ego as though a puppy had relieved itself on the carpet. No one wanted to point out the obvious: that most of the journalists had dozens of articles in the displayed magazines, and that bragging about your work just wasn’t done.

I was new to writing at the time, but I quickly absorbed this lesson about the difference between professionals and amateurs. Professionals take the work seriously, but not themselves. Amateurs and semi-professionals reverse the priority, so for them writing and publication is all about ego.

What other differences are there? Considering the number of people who describe themselves as writers in their Facebook and Twitter profiles, the question is worth answering.

Here are some of the other differences I’ve observed:

  • Professionals work when they need to, amateurs when they feel like: If you graduate from university, publishing isn’t that difficult, especially if your editor is willing to guide you. Amateurs, though, are likely to sit back and glow in the bask of accomplishment when they sell an article, and not write another one until the mood strikes them. Professionals may celebrate sending off an article by taking the rest of the afternoon off, but usually they’ve no sooner finished one article before they need to start thinking of the next.
  • Professionals are pragmatists, amateurs perfectionists: Professionals take pride in their work, but they also have a perspective on their work. They know they aren’t writing deathless prose most of the time, but something that will be forgotten in a few weeks. By contrast, amateurs will labor far past the point where improvements are worth the time and effort. Professionals don’t have time for endless tinkering.
  • Professionals judge their work by results, amateurs by efforts: Like high school students, amateurs assume that their work should be judged by how hard they try. Professionals recognize that their work is judged by results – and that an article that is long or takes hours to write can fail as easily as a short, quick piece.
  • Professionals make deadlines or explain why: To amateurs, submitting an article on time is less important than their perfectionism. Professionals know that when they miss deadlines, they are letting their editors and other people down. I’ve heard amateurs laugh about missing deadlines, but rarely a professional. If a professional does joke about deadlines, they sound distinctly guilty.
  • Professionals accept criticism, amateurs are hostile to it: Sometimes professionals complain about editing, but they are usually sharp-tempered because of other matters when they do – or right. But, having invested so much more in their work, amateurs have trouble accepting that their work could be improved. In fact, many amateurs become angry if their work receives anything except praise.
  • Professionals edit to improve the work, amateurs to make it sound more like them: To a degree, all editing is affected by the editor’s own habits of writing (in fact, I can predict fairly accurately what changes an editor is likely to ask in a piece once I’ve worked with them a few times). The difference is that professionals try not to rewrite a piece by someone else as though they had written it. Amateurs don’t make this distinction, imagining through inexperience or ego that the way they write is the only possible way to write.

There are probably other differences, but these are the most common ones. Professionals, I suspect, will nod in agreement at them. Amateurs will probably either be angered by what I said, or else guiltily recognize their own faults.

Needless to say, it’s those who recognize themselves in my comments who have the best chance of making the transition to professionals. Other amateurs might also make the transition, but their progression is likely to be rockier, and include longer and more frequent detours.

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Redaction or revision?

Posted in Bruce Byfield, journalism, Personal, redaction, revision, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , , on September 22, 2011| 2 Comments »

One of the unavoidable facts of online publications is that you’re going to make mistakes. Mercifully, some will be typos. Others will be factual errors or passages that need to be made clearer. But no matter how carefully I or my editors proofread, the mistakes will come – in fact, I sometimes think that, the more I try to avoid mistakes, the more likely I am to make them. At any rate, when I make them, once I get over the embarrassment, like any other writer, I am left with two choices of what to do with them: redact them, adding a correction in a footnote or parentheses, or revise them, removing them from the text altogether.

Those who favor redaction argue that revision is useless, that the uncorrected original will always be available online no matter what you do. Some go further, and argue that redaction is more honest, in that you are not trying to cover up your mistakes, but leaving them for everyone to see. Ursula K. LeGuin also suggests that redaction is a feminist technique, an alternative to the pseudo-objectivity and linear thinking of traditional Western thought.

Such arguments have some validity. However, maybe it says something about my own brand of perfectionism (or maybe early toilet training) that I prefer revision to redaction.

For one thing, I’m not a fan of redaction as a reader. In all but a few cases – such as a revision of a well-known article – I react to redaction in much the same way as I react to the extras on a DVD: it’s more than I want to know. Since I suspect that many readers feel the same way, my preference is not to inflict redaction on them.

Just as importantly, redaction always feels to me like a rough draft. Worse – it feels to me that I am not living up to readers’ expectations if I redact. To me, part of my unspoken contract with readers is that I present what I have to say in as polished a form as possible.

It’s not that I’m trying to hide my mistakes – which is impossible on the Internet anyway. Rather, I feel obliged to make each article as factually accurate and as clearly written as possible. Why, I think, would readers be interested in my mistakes? If they really want to see where I went wrong, they can probably find an earlier, uncorrected version of a revised article, but at least I can make clear what the preferred text is. At any rate, that is all that most people are likely to read any way.

However, the main reason I prefer revision is that I consider redaction to be more about the writer than the topic of discussion. Look at me, redaction says to readers. Aren’t I an upright, honest person, willing to show you my imperfections and the development of my thoughts?

In fact, redaction doesn’t necessarily show anything of the sort. In one easily-locatable case, an article begins by stating that I lied. The article has been redacted several times, with an admission that the original claim was the result of a misunderstanding, but the original statement remains, and is all that people see in an online search. To my understandable ire, this is not a form of honesty, but a way of perpetuating the original attack while pretending to be honest.

At any rate, I am not interested in being a focus of readers’ attention. While I hope they want to listen to my arguments and opinions, I have zero interest in being at the center of even a modest cult of personality. To insert a claim about my personality in the form of a redaction seems only a distraction from what I have to say – and, to my George Orwell-influenced mind, anything that interferes with clear communication of my point should be edited out of existence.

If someone who convinces me that I made a mistake expresses a preference for redaction over revision, then I’ll ignore my personal preference and redact instead. But, left to myself, I’ll take revision over redaction every time. So far as I’m concerned, revision serves the argument and the readers better than redaction.

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Everything I need to know about writing I learned from George Orwell

Posted in Bruce Byfield, journalism, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , on September 18, 2011| Leave a Comment »

If I had to recommend a single work to would-be writers, then unquestionably that work would be George Orwell’s essay, “Politics and the English Language.” First published in 1946, the essay is dated now in its references, but no other work talks as clearly or succinctly about the purpose of writing, or gives such useful rules for accomplishing that purpose.

The larger context of “Politics” is the use of language in social situations. As Orwell had already suggested in works like Homage to Catalonia and Animal Farm (and would later explore in detail in Nineteen Eighty-Four), the essay explores how language is used to manipulate people and conceal thoughts in “the defense of the indefensible.” However, Orwell’s tone throughout the essay makes clear that he thinks such use of language is corrupt and disgusting, and should be opposed by any writer worthy of the name. So far as Orwell is concerned, a writer’s job is to communicate clearly and effectively – both as a matter of self-respect and as a duty to the language and public discourse.

Aside from dishonest intent, the main reason for corrupt language according to Orwell is that most writers and speakers don’t stop to think what they mean. Instead, they riffle through an assortment of clichés, choosing ones that approximately fit their meaning. Orwell lists the general categories of these clichés – dying metaphors, verb phrases, pretentious diction, and meaningless words – and, although many of his examples are dated after sixty-five years,  no one with any interest in language should have any trouble coming up with modern equivalents.

Talking about the role of the writer and giving negative examples would be enough by themselves to make “Politics” worth reading. But then, at the end, Orwell does something extraordinary: he reduces how to write clearly to six simple rules:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

In less than a hundred words, Orwell not only tells readers everything they need to know about writing clearly, but provides an example of  the type of writing he advocates. The result is a set of guidelines from which anyone can benefit. Considering the thousands of pages that people have written trying to explain how to write, this is an astonishing accomplishment.

One of the reasons why these rules are so useful is their flexibility. You’ll notice that Orwell does not say, for example, “Never use a long word when you can use a short one.” Such a rule would only be another type of pretentiousness, of a sort you sometimes find in Hemingway when he is parodying himself.

Instead, he says, “Never use a long word when a short one will do.” For example, if you just want to convey a general impression of size, then “big” is probably good enough. However, if you want a suggestion of humor, then “humongous” would be more appropriate. Similarly, if want to imply something out of the ordinary range of bigness, then “outsized” might be a more effective choice.

The same goes for a several of his other rules. In general, Orwell suggests, you want to use the active voice – but only when you “can.” If you have a reason for using the passive voice (for instance, to suggest helplessness, you might want to write “A groan issued from his lips” rather than “he groaned”), then do so. In the same way, a foreign expression is only valid if there is no English equivalent; use a Latin or French phrase for any other reason, and you are probably trying to sound impressive when you should be thinking of what you want to say.  Then, just to emphasize the point, he ends by urging that you ignore any of these rules if they fail to aid the clarity of thought and expression that he assumes is a writer’s goal.

If practiced, what these rules do for you is to make you think exactly what you are trying to say. Unlike the rules that other writers propose, these are not suggestions that you can apply by rote. What they really are is a set of suggestions for how to keep your purpose actively engaged while you are writing.

What makes “Politics and the English Language” so unique – and such a necessity – is that, more than any other book or essay on writing I have ever seen, it cuts through the pretenses and the posturings and the assumptions about being a writer to articulate what writing is about and to offer concrete ways to achieve the purpose of writing.

Read (and re-read) “Politics,” and when its rules become a part of your normal writing and editing, and you will understand all you need to know about writing. After that, the rest will be practice.

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Ernest Swanson, “Hawk”

Posted in aboriginal art, art, art appreciation, bentwood box, British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, Charity Bentwood Boxes, Ernest Swanson, First Nations art, Haida art, John Wilson, journalism, Latimer Gallery, Mitch Adams, Northwest Coast Art, Patricia Louise Williams, Personal, Uncategorized, writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Last week when I was in the Lattimer Gallery, I received my copy of the book for the 2010 Charity Bentwood Boxes. It’s a small but well-designed book, and it reminded me that I hadn’t blogged about the box I bought in the auction.

2010 was the fourth year of the auction, with the proceeds going to Vancouver Aboriginal Health. The concept is simple: James Michels makes and donates the boxes, which are decorated by Northwest Coast artists, and the boxes are sold in a silent auction. In 2010, $10,850 was raised – more than double the amount raised the year before.

Over the last couple of years, the decorating of the boxes has become increasingly competitive as artists try to outdo each with their concepts. In 2010, for example, Landon Gunn added copper moon faces to his box, and Jing painted his in a Chilkat design. Steve Smith made his box a rattle. Even more extravagantly, Ian Reid (Nusi) crowded his with Tibetan pray flags and images of the Buddha, while Rod Smith chopped up his box and reassembled it. Perhaps the most ingenious box was Clinton Work’s “The Shop Thief,” a little man with the box for a body and the lid for a hat surrounded by the tools he had stolen – a theme that proved especially popular with the artists. If anything, the competition to be original promises to be even fiercer next year, with some artists already planning their designs for 2011.

I bid on several boxes, but, as I expected, the bidding soon got out of hand (even if it was for a charity). In the end, I was pleased to bring home “Hawk,” by Haida artist Ernest Swanson, a traditional piece that many people overlooked.

Part of the reason “Hawk” was overlooked may have been that it was on the bottom shelf of the display case, so you had to get down on your hands and knees to see it properly. But a larger reason, I suspect, was that it was a traditional piece with none of the embellishments of the more extravagant designs. When I contacted him online, even Swanson sounded like he thought he should produced something more original.

For my part, I have no complaints. Although I own a number of contemporary Northwest Coast pieces, I appreciate a traditional piece, too. Moreover, despite the fact that Swanson is relatively young, he has a reputation for traditional design, and for several years he has been on my short list of artists whose work I wanted to buy some day. I was delighted to get a sample of his work for a reasonable price – a sentiment that may sound unsuitable to a charity event, but I would be less than honest if I didn’t state it.

Much of Swanson’s work seems to be jewelry, a medium in which he is rapidly reaching the stage where his prices are soon likely to take a big jump upwards. That makes “Hawk” a bit of an exception in his work.

Nonetheless, I appreciate the boldness of the design, which has relatively little variation in line thickness. At the same time, it manages to be a busy design, perhaps because of the relative lack of red as a secondary color – a design decision that is almost a necessity, since too much secondary red would be garish and overwhelming given the bright red lit.

I appreciate, too, how the fact that centering the face on corners makes the design seem abstract from most angles, with the pattern only becoming obvious as you turn the box.

“Hawk” is a piece that you have to study for a while to appreciate. It stands now on my dresser, holding spare keys (because I feel that such a practical a thing as a box should be used, so long as it is used respectfully), and I find that my appreciation has grown even greater over the months of seeing and using it.

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