Posted by Zo on July 4, 2002, at 22:43:24
In reply to In defense of Lou, posted by Lou Pilder on July 4, 2002, at 21:27:33
> Perhaps you are all correct and I should forget telling my experiance here.
Maybe so.
>Maybe I should stick to just being social.
I agree, that does seem to be what people are sugggesting. . .
>For the past 6 months , I have been reading about the suffering that many are going through on this board.
It is a lot, isn't it. Sometimes it's hard to read without feeling the frustration of wanting to help and being unable to.
>Yet today, you could consider yourselves the luckiest people on the face of the earth.
Whoa, Lou. . .What is your intention, with this sentence?
Do you mean to suggest to these suffering people that they are now suffering even more because they didn't listen to you?!
As a writer and editor, I have to say, this sentence, as it now stands, invites that interpretation.
But is that your intention?
I sense it is not. I sense that you really want to help. A genuine and rare quality to find.My thought is, what if you just kept whittling at your sentences until they conveyed your true sentiments? What if you edited out anything that even hinted at negativity, scolding or anything else that might turn a reader off.
Passionate beliefs are a real challenge to edit into reader-friendliness. .. I know!
But this is your responsiblity as a writer. A writer has to work on their sentences until the reader gets your meaning in the way you intend. And this challenge is unending, through everything you write. But I love challenging work. My sense is, so do you.
Zo
p.s. You might try writing posts first to your word processor, which gives one the chance to polish the sentences a bit before sending the post.
poster:Zo
thread:5991
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20020627/msgs/5993.html