There’s this constant debate about the nature of reading a physical book (or even digital book) versus listening to an audiobook. I frankly don’t care how you get your media, there’s no superior way to do so, and we’re all just passing time on our one journey through life anyhow. Yet, this debate bleeds over into something much more personal to me, and infinitely less talked about. Writing.
As all language learners know, the four main language skills are listening, reading, speaking, and writing. And if the first two are essentially equivalent, at least in some people’s minds, are the second two as well? As a 21st century professional writer boy, I have some thoughts.
Speaking Versus Writing and Linearity
One of the biggest things that separates a speech versus writing is that soundwaves must come out in a linear sequence. In other words, a speech starts at Point A, goes directly to Point B, and plods onward to Point C before concluding at Point D, with no zips and zaps in between. Sure, a speaker can reference Point B while beyond Point C, but they can never take their soundwaves back. A writer, on the other hand, has until the ‘Publish’ or ‘Send’ button is tapped to agonize, edit, and perfect it.
Writing doesn’t work that way. A writer can jump up and down and write the part of the article or book that feels best to them at a given time. I’ve jumped up and down this article so much by this point that it’d make Primer look easy to follow by comparison. (Spoiler: We talk about TikTokers in a non-pejorative way, later.) As writers, we have our ability to shape a piece almost four dimensionally. Whole paragraphs can move to different headers like so many business people on the elevator, learning the meeting is on Floor 12, not 8.
Now, you might think that, being a professional writer, this all means that I think writing is infinitely superior. That’s false. Speeches are raw, unfiltered, and a good speaker by definition has incredible talent. That’s cool. In this paragraph, I had to edit the first sentence even in the rough draft. I went back and changed “point A” and “point B” and so on to have capitals after writing it the first time. Oh, and the preceding paragraph where we talk about skipping around in time as writers? I wrote this before that because I was more afraid I’d lose my thoughts that needed to go here than there.
That isn’t to say that speakers don’t make scripts (or have them written for them by writers), but speakers, and especially those without notes, are pretty awesome and I fear their power. Then, imagine a captivating speaker, like NorthernLion or a similar streamer, that goes live and speaks decently well every day. If I can write half as well as NorthernLion speaks, I consider myself as winning.
It’s worth noting that since I started this article, I’ve realized modern video and sound editing software allow you to jump about during digitally-published speeches while writing with a pencil does not for writing, but I think 90% of what I say here still stands.
Be Quiet, I’m Reading a YouTube Essay
Conversely, some of the greatest and most insightful pieces of today are coming straight out of YouTube essays. I often prefer to read information, but I cannot deny the gravitational pull of the YouTube medium, and spoken essays.
Many of these essays don’t even properly use the full audiovisual spectrum that the medium allows. That is to say, the background is nearly always black or just showing unrelated gameplay footage half the time, while simultaneously discussing the woes of the gen Z and millennial job market or housing situation. These are, in effect, speeches and not writing, but they sure feel like writing.
The point is, while speaking and writing are characteristically different in many regards, the types of information you’re able to send out are similar in both formats. And, I ultimately think they’re both valuable.
Haikuists, TikTokers, and the March of Time
In the same vein, many people today are dismayed at the rise of TikTok and short form content. Just as they were with the internet at large, TV, radio, newspapers, and the printing press before that. We can only imagine that when the first haiku hit the world in like 999 B.C. or whenever, that the elderly gent and lady of the time must’ve felt that it was the fall of Japan, the end of an era, and a sign that the sun may no longer rise in the East.
TikTokers are the haikuists of our day, like it or not.
This is all to say that I still love written content, wish there were more written guides, and want to see more of it. But, at the end of the day, while my opinion on whether speaking is equivalent to writing is totally irrelevant, I see and acknowledge that they rightfully share the same space.