You work at a company that needs some copy written. The writer sends a draft. You need a change. What do you do?
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Example A. You send the following email:
Let’s change, “Mary and David go around the mulberry bush” to “Mary and David skip around the mulberry bush together”.
Example B. You send the following email:
“I’d like to avoid using the word “go” in this blurb because the product name is “Go Ahead.” Maybe use “skip”? Also, let’s show that Mary and David are doing this together. I want to make it clear that there’s one bush and they’re both moving around it.
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B! B is the way to go! Use B!
A is a trick, a mirage, fool’s gold. It looks easier and simpler and faster. But it’s not.
The writer sees A and thinks:
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“Skip” doesn’t work here because the previous paragraph used “skip” three times and it’s getting old. And we can’t end with “together” because we’ve been asked by Marketing to end with “bush.”
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But the writer (let’s call him, weeklyrob) is dead in the water. He can’t write something better than the suggested copy, because he has no idea why it was suggested in the first place. He doesn’t know that the person commenting dislikes “go” and doesn’t really care if the replacement is “skip” “hop” or “roll about with arms akimbo.” He doesn’t know that he could just say that they “run together” and solve the whole issue.
So he either:
1. Works hard to make the change as requested, letting Marketing know, and rewriting the previous paragraph to get rid of a “skip” or two. Unnecessary work.
2. Makes the change as requested, doesn’t let Marketing know, and doesn’t change the previous paragraph. Marketing is annoyed and quality is lowered.
3. Emails the person who made the request and explains the problem. Then the person making the suggestion has to say option B anyway! Extra work on the writer’s part and on the requester’s part.
4. Some unholy combination of the above.
[All this without mentioning that maybe the writer is better at writing than the person making the request. So if something needs to be changed, the writer should be the one choosing the copy based on the requester’s needs.]
I hope that I’ve been of some service to you today.
This has some parallels to my work. Sometimes a customer will request something specific, without explaining the reasoning. I *could* put in unnecessary work to produce just what he wants, but more often I try to find out what his goal really is. Usually, there’s a better solution he isn’t aware of; less work for me, better product for him. After a few issues go through this process with a particular customer, he generally gets the message and switches to “plan B” for future issues. For the ones who don’t learn, or won’t adapt, it just means more billable hours for me, though I prefer to save them money and work efficiently.
Ah, now if I billed by the hour, it would be easier to take.
I bet this has parallels all over the place. People asking for stuff should express the goal and let the pros handle the tactics.
I try to keep that in mind when I’m working with specialists in fields other than mine. It doesn’t always work, but I try.
This sort of thing happens so often, and I’ve been both the victim and culprit of it, that I wonder if it’s not part of the writer’s job to take what the “client” says and dig out the real issue. In other words, always assume #3 is what you have to do, and take the initial request as the first entry in the dialogue you wish they’d go through in their head before ever writing to you in the first place.
No matter how poorly they initially articulated the request, whether it was “put this sentence in this spot with this wording” or “I think we need something about blah here”, I think the first thing you get from somebody is always just a “help” with some attached information.
I agree that usually we can do better at asking for work, but for a lot of people it’s difficult to articulate the reasons behind why they’re asking for what they’re asking for in such a specific manner. So they fall back on just taking a stab at it themselves. I don’t think they usually realize they’re doing this when they do this.
That’s my excuse for everyone else. Since I theoretically know better and *can* articulate “just the goal”, I have many other excuses for myself.
Hey, I’m just giving a tip on working with a writer.
If the requester tries to articulate the reasoning for the edit, then the end result will be a speedier and probably higher quality piece.
If not, then you roll the dice.
It’s that simple and I’m not blaming anyone for anything.
As far as whether it’s a writer’s job to question exact verbiage requested by a client, there are so many variables that I don’t think I can make a valid generalization. The generalization I do make is about the result.
[Incidentally, this post is about a request to change a document, rather than create a new one. For new stuff, I think you can generally assume that they wouldn’t be coming to a writer in the first place if they’ve already written the thing just how they want it.]