Trip reports may be documentary, descriptive, scientific, literary, or exhibitive, and are often created under a combination of motivations. Their value depends not on the skill of the writer alone, but on the intention of the writer. For example, if they are documentary, descriptive, or scientific (by which I mean informative), there is no need to consider things like grammar during an assignation of quality. If they are literary, factualness will not be of primary value. If they are merely exhibitive, they will have very little value of any kind.
Most modern trip reports written by cavers are merely exhibitive. The trip reports found on this forum, and in the pages of US grotto publications are largely so. One could easily write a great stack of them without once entering a cave or leaving home. They have a fairly standard form:
I woke up at such and such a time and met so and so at a place. The weather was thus. We went to another place and met other people and ate certain food. We rode to the site and put on clothes and got our things together. We walked to the cave. The weather again. We had feelings at the entrance. We entered and performed various physical feats. Someone said something clever. We found the physicality of our movements less than comfortable. We realized we had forgotten some bit of hardware. Someone expressed semi-comic despair, but we made do. We ate such and such. We headed back out. Some exaggerated peril happened. We had some emotions. We got to the entrance, and into the weather, where we had some emotions again. We walked to the car and fiddled with clothes. We rode somewhere and ate something and drank some alcohol. The end.
Fill in imaginary specifics, and you can write trip reports of the acceptable standard until the cows come home.
Why is this the acceptable standard? Why are these sorts of writings encouraged and praised? At least we do not need to ask why they are written. They are part and parcel of the overwhelming narcissism of modern society. When I say they are exhibitive, I mean that, like Facebook and Instagram, their main purpose is to expose an individual to an audience. Not an individual's work, not an individual's art, not information valuable or educational or interesting or inspiring to the audience... simply the individual's existence. Why we need to announce and re-announce the mundane fact of our existence to the world of strangers who don't care and acquaintances who already know is a much bigger topic than I can tackle. So, limiting myself to trip reports, here are a list of suggestions and observations that might improve the quality of our writings and, importantly, the quality of our time spent underground.
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Know why you are writing. If you simply want the world to know you've gone caving, fine, but realize that, properly and inevitably, almost no one cares.
Try not to exaggerate the scale and significance of your underground doings. Since our day-to-day physical surroundings are often mundane, and our interactions with the physical world take place through many layers of insulation, the enhanced perception that caving can prompt may make this difficult.
Caving is not dangerous or a sport. Caving does not make you daring, tough, or an athlete.
While both are denominations of currency in the spelean cultural economy, misery is not meritorious, and neither is originality. Relating that you got cold and sore and found a new passage (or worse, were the first woman (amputee, midget, transgender auto-mechanic, escaped zoo-monkey, etc.) to see a certain chamber (climb a certain dome, reach a certain depth, negotiate a certain squeeze, etc.)) will not make your trip report interesting or impressive.
Almost none of our physical feats underground are noteworthy.
What we observe of our surroundings is noteworthy.
What we learn is noteworthy.
What we can teach is noteworthy.
It follows that if we want to write a trip report of value, we will need to quit focusing on ourselves, and observe, learn, and think. If we do not do so, we have nothing to say, and no reason to make a report.
If writing for purposes of documentation, clarity is the primary goal. Making notes or sketches in-cave can help you create high-quality descriptions.
If writing artistically, wait a week before sharing and re-read your work, editing or discarding as needed.
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Good trip reports are part of cave conservation. Visitors to a fragile and singular place should take as much as possible from the experience. We all do this in different ways, and writing trip reports should by no means be viewed as a requirement. But if we are able to write something informative, interesting, thought-provoking, or inspiring, we will have received full value for our time, and for the wear on the cave.
Lastly, I have written many bad trip reports, and do not wish to insult the authors of the many trip reports I have characterized as bad. Every effort that I read or write makes me hopeful and appreciative. If they're bad, I'm glad to say so, but they are also evidence that caves are inspiring places, and provide needed causation for our working with our language. If every caver who writes about caving would make an honest effort at improvement, I am confident that many real works of value, even works of art and literature, would emerge.
