The fastest way to master tech writing

Over the past three years, I've given several workshops on the basics of technical writing for people who don't consider themselves writers. These workshops are always short, ranging from 30 minutes to two hours. On top of that, we have limited attention spans. It's just not possible to remember everything that's been said. So if my audience could remember just one thing after the workshop, what should it be to help them most in their tech writing journey?

My answer to that is know your audience. It’s not just general advice but a targeted strategy that influences every aspect of your writing.

Basic or advanced?

This skill is very basic in the sense that every next recommendation or best practice is somewhat derived from it. Clarity, simplicity, consistency, brevity, active voice, good structure, visual aids, you name it. Why should you use it? Because it works best for your audience.

At the same time, you will be striving to achieve this understanding throughout your career. The fluid nature of this never-ending path also makes it one of the advanced skills. Impostor syndrome, the curse of knowledge, cultural and generational differences are just a few of the things you will face along the way.

Hard or soft?

Knowing your audience is fundamentally a soft skill. It involves empathy, being able to put yourself in your readers' shoes, and understanding their perspective. It can be a great transferable skill for a person starting out in their technical writing career, or a way for anyone else to become a better writer in a very short time.

Does that mean you can just rely on your empathy when you write? Well, it can give you a giant leap at once, but it won't get you the best results you can achieve. It can be enough for a non-writer, which is why it's the first and most important thing I teach in my workshops. If you are a professional technical writer, you need to work with clear techniques as well as your sense of what is good. That's the way to go from good to excellent.

A soft skill that can skyrocket one person's results may not be a strong point for another. Does this mean that technical writing is not for everyone? No, it just means that the learning curve will be different. Fortunately, as I said, many other tech writing principles come from knowing your audience. This is a kind of unpacking of a complex soft skill into a set of hard skills and techniques that anyone can use. They are learned through practice as they are systematically applied.

So yes, I believe that the shortest way to improve writing skills for any professional is to use your empathy. As simple and as difficult as it is.