When I had completed the first draft of my new book about Dogen, I sent it to three friends asking them to read it and give me feedback. Now the feedback has started to arrive, much of it really helpful. Some is the correction of small mistakes, but there are also questions that challenge me to reorganise whole sections in order to make them more reader friendly.
When writing I have a tendency to write for people who know roughly what I know about the subject. However, when one comes to revising the text, it is necessary to put oneself into the position of somebody who is much less familiar with the material. That person is going to want to know why is the author introducing this point or this topic or this question at this point. They want the characters in the book brought to life. They want to be able to follow the author’s line and that line needs to be fairly clear. All this is an exercise in putting oneself in the other person’s shoes which is an enormously useful thing to do, and not only when it comes to writing books.
So my manuscript arrives back with comments like, “At this point I am completely confused. You have suddenly introduced a new character into the story and I can’t see why. Where did he come from?” or “Why don’t you change the title to this section and start it by saying what it is about and why it is included?” or “I want it to be more of a story. I don’t want to have to keep jumping backwards and forwards,” or “It is all too abstract, I’m getting even more confused.” and so on.
This is really useful feedback. It makes one realise how blind one is to the other person’s position. It makes one struggle with the material. Here I am writing about a medieval Japanese text full of strange sounding names and subtle concepts designated by words in a funny foreign language and my job is to make it into something that flows like a fairy story. I know that I am not going to completely succeed in this task, but I can make progress. Also, what I learn by doing so also has relevance to all the other situations in life.
How well do I communicate normally? Undoubtedly this is an art in which one is always learning. Did Dogen have this problem? Undoubtedly he did. At least that is some consolation.
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What a great discussion. Thank you David, Annette, and Carol and the unseen "readers" whose minds/hearts have contributed. Carol I'm struck by the clarity of your sentence "One of the potential roles of the author is to give the reader the confidence to travel with him or her." Lovely, clear and precisely so. The role of the author also in the quiet of his/her mind and heart is to establish for whom the text is written. With a simple outline of which demographic, what age, reading habits, even education and income these people have, writers sometimes find it easier to navigate choice of words, sentence structure etc.
For Medicine Buddha/Medicine Mind for which you David kindly created a flowing preface, the readers I wanted to reach are those without any prior understanding of Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana or Visualization practice or neuroscience. Making all three as simple and clear as possible became the goal. As always with writing, I feel I succeeded partially.
An added thought: we are not taught to use our natural ability to visualize, but find it haphazardly rising when we read fairy tales or really good fiction. Sometimes as a writer going after exactly that, the creation of sights, sounds, sensations, tastes and smells offers the reader the anchor needed.
That is all very true and well put. Also, becoming conscious enough of the 'unseen ocean' to be able to articulate it may well need dialogue with somebody like yourself.
Thank you, Annette. Lovely to be with you all this morning.
What you say in the last paragraph seems to me very important. I have been very much thinking lately about "communication" We have so many means of communication today and yet do we really communicate? How can we formulate our message so that it is meaningful for the other person, not only that she understands it but that she is somehow stiumulated by what is being read, inspired by it, in such a way that she is prompted to prolong what is expressed, Good books have this effect! I am sure your book about Dogen will be among them!
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