The Importance of Good Communication

Communication is hard. Strike that. Good communication is really hard. It may not be
difficult to yell, or bully, or pontificate, but to understand someone else and be understood, to share who you are, what you think, what you feel, how you see the world in a way that someone can see it clearly . . . now that’s difficult.

I was a kid trying to tell my parents it was going to rain. I don’t know why I was so excited about it, but I ran into the living room of our trailer where my dad and stepmom were talking, and tried to explain what I had seen: a dark cloud moving across the sky, growing, piling on top of other
clouds, about to break open with rain.

What I said was this: “The sky told me it was going to rain.”

“This guy?”

“No. The sky.” They asked me to explain it again, and then again. Soon they were laughing . . . it became a big joke. I waved my arms frantically, jumping up and down, trying to explain it in a different way, but they laughed harder. I burst into tears, and an emptiness opened up inside: a
gnawing, hungry desire that would never be satisfied. I wanted them to understand me.

Present day. I’m in a classroom.

“Why is it important to communicate?” I ask. “What happens when we miscommunicate?”
At first I get blank stares, and then the wheels begin turning. Soon a student ventures forth, “Things don’t get done.”

Me: Like what?

Student 1: I dunno. Grades. Work?

“Okay,” I say. “That’s good.”

Student 2 adds, “Relationships break down. People get hurt.”

“Good again.”

Student 3 has a smile spreading across his face. It’s a good one. Yeah, he’s got it. “War,” he says. That will end the conversation for sure.

“Yes,” I agree. “If communication breaks down, it can lead to war.” The student gets a high five from another classmate.

Let’s back up. Miscommunication can be fairly harmless (“‘Who’s’ on first, ‘What’s’ on second, and ‘I don’t know’ is on third base”). But usually it’s more damaging. If a road construction crew doesn’t communicate to traffic that a bridge is out up ahead, someone could go off the road. If directions to a party are miscommunicated the friends never arrive. If prescribed medication
is miscommunicated between a doctor and nurse, the patient may not get enough medication, or may overdose. If an organization doesn’t communicate well, it breeds distrust and inefficiency. If a couple doesn’t communicate well they don’t stay married. If nations don’t communicate well they may find themselves at war.

On the other hand, clear construction signs give us fair warning that something’s not right up ahead. Good communication means the friends make it to the party, the patient is given the medicine they need, the organization runs well and is successful, the couple communicate well and feel connected, and the nations negotiate peace.

How important is it that we communicate well? Very important.

Then why is communication so difficult?

Here’s an idea. If we could do telepathy, we could take the images, thoughts, experiences, and feelings out of our minds and put them in someone else’s. They would see what we see, know what we know, experience and feel what we experience and feel. It would be amazing, an invention that would revolutionize how we live and relate.

But we can’t, and so we are limited by language to communicate what we see, know, experience and feel.

For example, I may have an image of a car. It’s silver, a two door coupe, and runs on electric or hydrogen. You have an image of what I’m talking about, and I guarantee on some level that it’s not the same. However, we can still understand enough about what we’re talking about to get the
general idea that riding on a country road in a fast car on winding curves is exhilarating; it’s what car commercials use to capture our imaginations . . . and sell their cars.

We carry our baggage, our experiences, our worldviews into every conversation. When I say the word “father,” someone may remember the time they went fishing with their dad, or played baseball, or wrestled together, and how it was a great bonding experience. Another may think of “father” and remember the drunk who came home late at night and hit their mom, hit them, or
worse, and feel anxiety or anger at the mention of the word.

Father. It’s one word, but has two drastically different emotional connotations.

Language is a broken tool, or at the very least it’s loaded with “baggage”, our positive or negative experiences, our culture, gender, faith, age, education, geography . . . and so on. I’ll never see exactly what you’re talking about or what you mean, and you won’t see exactly what I mean,
but we can get close enough to communicate, to understand fairly well, and get along if we give each other a good dose of grace along the way.

So what is writing? Writing is anything that seeks to communicate with someone else, whether it be a novel, an email, a memo, or a grocery list. Writing at its core is communication (not the only kind, and maybe not even the best) between two or more people. Right now I’m having a
conversation with you. I can’t see you, and I don’t know you yet, but we’re having a relationship, wherever you are. You’ve been listening as I’ve talked, and you may be responding by thinking about what I’m saying, picturing the two door sports car and how you’d like to be up in the mountains in Colorado driving it, or remembering your relationship with your dad. Maybe you’re
writing notes, asking questions, getting angry. It means you’re engaged in the conversation.

So here’s the point: writing is communication, it’s conversation, it’s relational. Since writing is communication, good things happen when we write well. Bad things might happen if we don’t write well. At the very least, bad writing, poorly communicated writing will create a comedy
of errors, grumpy looks, and confusion.

Next time I’ll talk more about what I share with my students about the steps of writing, and then I’d like to take a look “under the hood” to talk with other writers and their journeys to communicate well.

Words Have Power

"You're such a screw up."

"I wish you'd never been born."

"I was never meant to raise someone else's kid."

Words destroy.

"I love you."

"I'm sorry. Can you forgive me?"

"You really did well with that. You're so neat. Good job."

Words heal.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)

Words give life.

At the foundation of reality lies the spoken word. Some physicists say that in the tenth dimension, everything that exists is reduced to sound waves. It may not be too much of a stretch to think those "sounds" could be words (or song). Words have power. We have the ability to create life or destroy it. Maybe not always literally, but definitely figuratively, and sometimes—who knows—even literally.

I remember a friend in fourth grade. We were in band: he played saxophone, I played the French horn. His parents were going through a divorce. He was always talking. One day we got in an argument, and I wanted him to just stop talking. I said something about his parents getting divorced. The silence between us continued forever after that. His mother yelled at me through her tears, his older brother and his friends stood around every corner, threatening to beat me up, and when I tried to talk with him after that, all I got was stony silence. His eyes revealed nothing, except a wall to hide whatever hurt was inside. I tried to apologize, but by then the damage had been done.

Over a decade later I was still haunted by that conversation. I looked him up through some different friends, got his phone number, and gave him a call.

"Hello?"

"Hi. J___? Do you remember me?"

"Remember the conversation we had in fourth grade?"

"Yeah. I remember."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?"

Silence, then, "Yeah. No problem. That's water under the bridge."

Another scenario.

It was late at night, my uncle had gone to bed hours before, and my aunt and I sat on the couch in the living room, talking. "Nothing good happens in my life," I said.

My aunt was silent a moment, building up steam for what was about to come next. "That's not true. Remember the time we came and got you and you came to live with us?" She continued over the next hour, walking me through several moments in my life that I had been rescued, or kept from some pain, or had received a reward or affirmation. As she talked, something shifted in me. I no longer saw my life as a big tragedy, no longer cast myself in the role of an unwanted child, but saw moments of protection on my life, favor . . . and grace. It was an incredibly healing moment, a night that has changed the direction of my life.

If words have that much power, then we should use them well. My dad used to say, "If you can speak well, you can influence a generation; if you can write well, you can influence a hundred generations." If our words have power, which they do, to heal or destroy, then we owe it to our readers, to the craft, to our words, to ourselves and to countless others to give our very best, to work hard, to be conscientious about the words we use. Good writing requires hard work. In fact, the harder we work, the easier it will be for the reader to understand what we are trying to say, and they may thank us. And maybe they'll even want to read more. We have no idea the impact our words can have.

Choose your words well. Choose to bring life into the world through the things you say. Write well.

New Site is up

Welcome to Writers' Rites!

This is a community blog for writers, talking about . . . writing.

Here's a sneak peak about some of the upcoming topics I'll be writing about:
1) The process of writing. Here we'll explore the process of drafting, revising, editing . . . all the things I teach my students in written composition.

2) I'll share some primary "tips" I've learned from teaching writing that should help your writing become stronger.

3) I'll share some of what really happens in the writing process, some of the things that have worked, and some that haven't. I'll also bring in other writers to share their experiences as well.

4) I'll talk about different genres of writing. Again, you'll be hearing from other voices as well on this one.

5) We'll take a look at some famous author bios

6) I'll throw in a few common grammar trends and break them down in ways that hopefully won't be so . . . 7th grade school marm-ish.

7) I'll write some about the submission process, include helpful websites and tips, and encourage you to weigh in as well.

After that . . . we'll see where this goes. Hopefully this can become a writing community where we share our writing experiences, tips, and learn from each other.

And now . . . on with the story . . .