It's just words ...

Recently someone (let's call him "Stan") took me completely by surprise by asking me to drop everything and immediately edit a huge body of Web text—when I was already struggling to meet tight deadlines on several big projects. I pointed out how long it would take to accomplish the task (about a full eight-hour day) and tried to propose an alternative plan that would push out some of the non-essential editing for a week or two until I could clear off my deadline plate.

Stan was not happy about the editing taking so long; he had already made up his mind that I should be able to finish the job in two or three hours.

"How could it take so long to edit this text?" Stan asked. "It's just words."

"It's just words." Hmmmm. The fact that Stan could even make such a statement about writing reflects a critical problem faced by many business, marketing, and technical writers: lack of respect for their professional skill.

Far too many people (especially technical and business types) slept through 12 years of English class and have never taken a single class in writing (yes, those are two different subjects!) Their writing "experience" is limited to producing an occasional business report and drafting an annual letter to Grandma. And yet they claim to be writing experts!

Let's project the "Stan scenario" onto a few other professions, and see how it sounds:

• Car owner to mechanic: "How come it takes so long to rebuild the engine? It's just parts!"
• Businessman to programmer: "How could it take so long to update the accounting software? It's just lines of code!"
• Homeowner to builder: "How could it take so long to complete my room addition? It's just pieces of lumber!"
• Patient to doctor: "How could it take so long to treat my cancer? It's just cells!"
• Builder to architect: "How could it take so long to finish those blueprints? It's just a bunch of drawings!

"It's just words?" Far from it! Words represent ideas. They are the tangible expression of concepts. Words give life to thinking—and thinking is, quite simply, the hardest work a human being can do.

Thomas Edison's favorite quote was from the noted 18th-painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, who observed, "There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking."

The bottom line? Good, tight, powerful writing is not just stacking up piles of word blocks. It's like weaving an elaborate tapestry of thought. To edit that kind of writing, you can't just knock down the word pile and rearrange it. No, you have gently pull apart the threads and then carefully reweave the ideas and concepts to ensure they still make sense.

And that, my friends—like it or not—takes time. Lots of time.