Do you remember when you were back in high school or college? Remember when your professor forced you to write all those papers and presentations, made you rewrite those drafts over and over again even if it meant spending night after night correcting everything? Remember when you completed your first manuscript, and told yourself it was a masterpiece, only to go back and eliminate nearly half of that same manuscript? Why you may ask? Because it was wordy. Because it was too flowery. Because it wasn't concise enough to the point where readers could follow along easily. Because ... insert whatever else is wrong with your manuscript here. 

And that, my fellow writers, is technical writing.

Everywhere you look, you see manuals, guides, and articles geared towards a specific group of people. From research published in the National Institute of Health to the informative articles you find in the Washington Post and New York Times, to even the textbooks those teachers force you to get, you see aspects of technical writing. It is a type of writing that attempts to condense whatever is in your mind into something that is understandable to everyone. Nowadays, many people are starting to require more skills in technical writing, which is why it's a growing market. Some of those skills include:

- acknowledging your audience

- using appropriate language

- using clear and concise phrases

- utilizing images

However, while technical writing is a useful tool for teaching and communication, it can also be utilized in fiction. Although you want the reader to vividly picture the setting, at the same time, you don’t want your dialogue to be bogged down by unnecessary descriptions. Though you want the reader to fall in love with all of your characters' eccentricities, and you want to portray all your scenes with an array of sensual imagery, in the end, you will have to get rid of that. Because both the plot and the characters need to be front and center, and if you focus too much on a certain scene or setting or even detail, you might end up missing crucial plot points that help move the story along. 

But more than that, think of technical writing as editing. You are still writing, but you’re also editing your words in a way that makes the message clearer. You’re ensuring that your story is character-driven, not detail-driven. While it might not be the most exciting thing, it still draws your readers in. It helps your readers know what’s going on without all the excess baggage. 

Although technical writing might not be the most exciting thing in the world, it is certainly very useful. It can help make your story more concise, your message clear, and your editing process smoother. Over the years it has been used to teach as well as show readers the message behind our works. And as writers, regardless of whether or not we like it, technical writing is still an important aspect of fiction.