Inspired by...

[randomness]

...an ironic comment from dpolicar, and a (friends-locked) posting from redhound.

"(P)eople really don't read what you write. They read some sort of virtual text constructed from your title, a few fragments of your text, and whatever preconceptions may be stimulated by them. It's sort of amazing watching people rant about your failure to consider things you explicitly addressed."

"Hey, what do you have against reactions that completely miss your point? You want us all to understand you and respond relevantly, or something?"

I'd extend this to say that it's not just that people don't read what you write, they don't listen to what you say, or even watch what you do. As drbitch once observed, humans write stories; it's what they do. But they often pay more attention to the story inside their head than anything that may be playing out before them.

Comments

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure.

In fact, the thread starts with my wondering if I was explaining myself badly. I will totally grant that my failures as a writer might contribute to the lack of comprehension on the part of my readers.

However, redhound is one of the funniest men I know, and he has a talent for coming up with pithy summations. He writes extremely well, and once (barely) made a living of it. And yet he reports this problem.

So I have to conclude there is something going on here that even excellent writing cannot address.

[cmat.livejournal.com]

Natürlich; I hope I didn't come across as implying otherwise. And "failures as a writer" is much stronger than what I meant! Didn't mean to imply fault/blame. Just that we all are and are surrounded by faulty readers, so there's some mileage to be gained in treating it as a fact of life and trying to work around it as best we can.

Didn't mean to seem critical; if I did, I apologize. I'll go read the actual thread now, shall I? :-)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Didn't mean to seem critical; if I did, I apologize.

Not at all. I'm being self-deprecating for contrastive effect. redhound really does write much better than I do. He's gifted, and I'm just plugging along.