Writing, Briefly (2005)(paulgraham.com)
paulgraham.com
Writing, Briefly (2005)
http://www.paulgraham.com/writing44.html
24 comments
One of my philosophy professors told me once, "Remember: you can't edit nothing, but you can edit shit". Advice that's valuable beyond writing.
I have a friend who is an excellent software engineer, and he has a very similar philosophy to his coding. Get something down and then fix it and improve it.
He also says something along the lines of "if you look back on something you wrote a year later, and you don't feel compelled to change it, you haven't learned/thought/grown enough".
He also says something along the lines of "if you look back on something you wrote a year later, and you don't feel compelled to change it, you haven't learned/thought/grown enough".
This is an excellent quote. I'd like to attribute it properly -- would you mind naming this professor?
Out of respect for his privacy I'll reach out to him and ask.
That's very admirable behavior. If he assents, please do share his identity -- even if privately.
+1 about the need for rewriting. There's a really good quote about that:
“There is no such thing as good writing,
only good rewriting.”
— Robert Graves
The tips in bullet form:
- Write a bad version 1 as fast as you can
- rewrite it over and over
- cut out everything unnecessary
- write in a conversational tone
- develop a nose for bad writing, so you can see and fix it in yours
- imitate writers you like
- if you can't get started, tell someone what you plan to write about, then write down what you said
- expect 80% of the ideas in an essay to happen after you start writing it, and 50% of those you start with to be wrong
- be confident enough to cut
- have friends you trust read your stuff and tell you which bits are confusing or drag
- don't (always) make detailed outlines
- mull ideas over for a few days before writing
- carry a small notebook or scrap paper with you
- start writing when you think of the first sentence
- if a deadline forces you to start before that, just say the most important sentence first
- write about stuff you like
- don't try to sound impressive
- don't hesitate to change the topic on the fly
- use footnotes to contain digressions
- use anaphora to knit sentences together
- read your essays out loud to see (a) where you stumble over awkward phrases and (b) which bits are boring (the paragraphs you dread reading)
- try to tell the reader something new and useful
- work in fairly big quanta of time
- when you restart, begin by rereading what you have so far
- when you finish, leave yourself something easy to start with
- accumulate notes for topics you plan to cover at the bottom of the file
- don't feel obliged to cover any of them
- write for a reader who won't read the essay as carefully as you do, just as pop songs are designed to sound ok on crappy car radios
- if you say anything mistaken, fix it immediately
- ask friends which sentence you'll regret most
- go back and tone down harsh remarks
- publish stuff online, because an audience makes you write more, and thus generate more ideas
- print out drafts instead of just looking at them on the screen
- use simple, germanic words
- learn to distinguish surprises from digressions
- learn to recognize the approach of an ending, and when one appears, grab it.
- Write a bad version 1 as fast as you can
- rewrite it over and over
- cut out everything unnecessary
- write in a conversational tone
- develop a nose for bad writing, so you can see and fix it in yours
- imitate writers you like
- if you can't get started, tell someone what you plan to write about, then write down what you said
- expect 80% of the ideas in an essay to happen after you start writing it, and 50% of those you start with to be wrong
- be confident enough to cut
- have friends you trust read your stuff and tell you which bits are confusing or drag
- don't (always) make detailed outlines
- mull ideas over for a few days before writing
- carry a small notebook or scrap paper with you
- start writing when you think of the first sentence
- if a deadline forces you to start before that, just say the most important sentence first
- write about stuff you like
- don't try to sound impressive
- don't hesitate to change the topic on the fly
- use footnotes to contain digressions
- use anaphora to knit sentences together
- read your essays out loud to see (a) where you stumble over awkward phrases and (b) which bits are boring (the paragraphs you dread reading)
- try to tell the reader something new and useful
- work in fairly big quanta of time
- when you restart, begin by rereading what you have so far
- when you finish, leave yourself something easy to start with
- accumulate notes for topics you plan to cover at the bottom of the file
- don't feel obliged to cover any of them
- write for a reader who won't read the essay as carefully as you do, just as pop songs are designed to sound ok on crappy car radios
- if you say anything mistaken, fix it immediately
- ask friends which sentence you'll regret most
- go back and tone down harsh remarks
- publish stuff online, because an audience makes you write more, and thus generate more ideas
- print out drafts instead of just looking at them on the screen
- use simple, germanic words
- learn to distinguish surprises from digressions
- learn to recognize the approach of an ending, and when one appears, grab it.
I think a numbered list works even better for rules. The German translation of this article looks so much more satisfying to me.
A great book that helped me was "On Writing" by Stephen King.
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-10th-Anniversary-Memoir-Craft...
https://www.amazon.com/Writing-10th-Anniversary-Memoir-Craft...
A thread from 2008: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=188385.
(Re)read Strunk & White every few years.
Although perhaps bear in mind that professional linguists and grammarians consider S&W to be garbage advice.
e.g. https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=15509
> Strunk's dreadful little book of drivel.
> Virtually nothing useful about English grammar can be learned from Strunk.
> the grammatical claims Strunk makes are foolish assertions
You can find many more examples with a quick search.
e.g. https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=15509
> Strunk's dreadful little book of drivel.
> Virtually nothing useful about English grammar can be learned from Strunk.
> the grammatical claims Strunk makes are foolish assertions
You can find many more examples with a quick search.
I'd find it more convincing if the writing there was better.
I don't say that S&W is or should be the end-all-be-all of English; by all means, pick and choose.
I don't say that S&W is or should be the end-all-be-all of English; by all means, pick and choose.
Among the rules for good writing should also be, don't use four thousand semicolons to weld your entire essay into a heaving sea of words which offers the reader not even the life ring of a majuscule here and there.
I'm not sure I can agree; semicolons can come in handy occasionally.
[deleted]
Oh, sure! Occasionally. In moderation and with care. Not, in other words, the way they're used in the linked farrago.
A what the hell? Farrago? That’s a bigger sin than semicolons
In the days when dictionaries were not yet omnipresent, I heeded complaints about the breadth of my lexicon. Now, when the meaning of every word in the world is nigh instantaneously knowable from every Internet-connected device including the one you used to fuss about "farrago", I no longer worry about it. Congratulations! You learned a new word today.
This sounds like I’m on prank show. You talk like this in real life? Why are you using all these big words? Why not keep it simple stupid?
It’s way worse to write like you do than to list stuff out with semicolons,
It’s way worse to write like you do than to list stuff out with semicolons,
I think the point is that the 3rd paragraph is one sentence with 35 semicolons. Generally, a sentence should hold one or two ideas, but this one is a mixture of a lot of ideas. Hence, one might call it a farrago.
Personally, I think I'm OK with this use, as it's supposed to be a kind of list after the colon. Isn't the proper use of semicolons somewhat subjective, anyways?
Personally, I think I'm OK with this use, as it's supposed to be a kind of list after the colon. Isn't the proper use of semicolons somewhat subjective, anyways?
Done to this awful extent, it's not just a stylistic choice but a UX error. Human brains optimized for reading initially recognize words and phrases based in part on their shape, and orthographic conventions like initial majuscules and bullet lists evolved to facilitate that recognition in support of legibility.
Abusing semicolons in this way is, in the most strictly pedantic sense, not syntactically incorrect inasmuch as a semicolon joins independent clauses. But that's like saying you can use a flathead screwdriver in place of a cold chisel. Sure, if you hammer on it hard enough for long enough, you can eventually muddle through, as long as you don't mind making an unserviceable mess of the work. But it's still the wrong tool - just as are thirty-five semicolons here.
Syntactically permissible or not, this usage is nonetheless an error, not because it is stylistically grotesque - although it is also that - but because it actively impairs legibility rather than promoting it.
Abusing semicolons in this way is, in the most strictly pedantic sense, not syntactically incorrect inasmuch as a semicolon joins independent clauses. But that's like saying you can use a flathead screwdriver in place of a cold chisel. Sure, if you hammer on it hard enough for long enough, you can eventually muddle through, as long as you don't mind making an unserviceable mess of the work. But it's still the wrong tool - just as are thirty-five semicolons here.
Syntactically permissible or not, this usage is nonetheless an error, not because it is stylistically grotesque - although it is also that - but because it actively impairs legibility rather than promoting it.
I know what that word means, but only because it appeared in Asimov's "The Stars, Like Dust", which I finished two days ago. I didn't know what it meant, and had to look it up.
The semicolons did not hinder my reading experience, they just changed the voice and pace of it. I certainly prefer an overabundance of semicolons to an overabundance of commas, and more still to an overabundance of full-stops that makes me feel like I'm reading some soulless middle-school essay.
HOWEVER I also strongly maintain that if something can be best expressed in a bullet list, do that. I feel that would have made reading this essay easier.
HOWEVER I also strongly maintain that if something can be best expressed in a bullet list, do that. I feel that would have made reading this essay easier.