> Assuming the point of his statement is to convince the reader of something.
This is the fundamental problem.
S&W is very good at taking people who "can't write" and teaching them 1) writing is a skill, 2) you can improve by practice, and 3) the basic practice is not very hard. I don't think it's a coincidence that the book remains popular among engineers who (often justifiably, based on some bad teacher) have been turned off to writing.
But also because writing is a skill, the achievable level is very high. (Much higher than I will achieve. I have a family member who is a professional author and dabbles in software development; I see where they are in software development, and realize I'm at the same place in writing). And there are different types of writing, for different goals, towards different audiences. Persuasive writing is not the same as technical documentation is not the same as poetry!
All of this matters but S&W pretend it doesn't.
A former CTO of mine told me of their previous position (where their reportees were writing primarily Java; we were writing a different language): The value of Java is that it establishes a floor. Anyone hired could be guaranteed not to fuck things up and contribute at least X additional value or work on features of at least Y complexity, and in that market / at that scale that was more important than providing an environment that made it easy for the experts to excel (which they could still do, just with more effort).
The book offers specific rules to follow, and if you follow them you will achieve at least mediocre writing. It's the Java of informative writing. If you are awful at writing and internalize those lessons you will improve and it will probably be some kind of professional boon. But there is so much more to writing, and you do yourself such a great personal disservice if you don't at least glimpse it.
(On the other hand, at the time I told that CTO I couldn't imagine working at such a place, and they agreed it wasn't appropriate for the current workplace. Now I'm touching management level in another company where I wish more of our programmers had a "mediocre language" floor rather than the more free-wheeling approach the company has. It seems there are very few places where the rewards of expertise beat the averages. But on the other hand, I still fucking hate writing Java.)
As for the analogy: without the "drawing" part, it might at least be accurate - but a lot of its force rests on that lie. Persuading people with lies is easy, but, well, wrong.
This is the fundamental problem.
S&W is very good at taking people who "can't write" and teaching them 1) writing is a skill, 2) you can improve by practice, and 3) the basic practice is not very hard. I don't think it's a coincidence that the book remains popular among engineers who (often justifiably, based on some bad teacher) have been turned off to writing.
But also because writing is a skill, the achievable level is very high. (Much higher than I will achieve. I have a family member who is a professional author and dabbles in software development; I see where they are in software development, and realize I'm at the same place in writing). And there are different types of writing, for different goals, towards different audiences. Persuasive writing is not the same as technical documentation is not the same as poetry!
All of this matters but S&W pretend it doesn't.
A former CTO of mine told me of their previous position (where their reportees were writing primarily Java; we were writing a different language): The value of Java is that it establishes a floor. Anyone hired could be guaranteed not to fuck things up and contribute at least X additional value or work on features of at least Y complexity, and in that market / at that scale that was more important than providing an environment that made it easy for the experts to excel (which they could still do, just with more effort).
The book offers specific rules to follow, and if you follow them you will achieve at least mediocre writing. It's the Java of informative writing. If you are awful at writing and internalize those lessons you will improve and it will probably be some kind of professional boon. But there is so much more to writing, and you do yourself such a great personal disservice if you don't at least glimpse it.
(On the other hand, at the time I told that CTO I couldn't imagine working at such a place, and they agreed it wasn't appropriate for the current workplace. Now I'm touching management level in another company where I wish more of our programmers had a "mediocre language" floor rather than the more free-wheeling approach the company has. It seems there are very few places where the rewards of expertise beat the averages. But on the other hand, I still fucking hate writing Java.)
As for the analogy: without the "drawing" part, it might at least be accurate - but a lot of its force rests on that lie. Persuading people with lies is easy, but, well, wrong.