Writing

Quotes#^645051

• Writing things down helps clarifying Ideas. One of the tests of whether you understand something is whether you can explain it to someone else. Writing doesn't just communicate ideas; it generates them.
  • Writing down your ideas shows you whether they have substance. Detecting when you're wrong is the first step to becoming right. There are many ways to record thought. Writing is the best for improving your Thinking.
  • Ideas can feel complete. It's only when you try to put them into words that you discover they're not. If you never subject your ideas to that test, you'll not only never have fully formed ideas, but also never realize it.
  • Drawing can help visualize ideas.
• Style is a small part of writing well. Most of writing is thinking clearly. The act of simply putting a thought into words makes it immediately obvious to you if you really understand it or not, and if not, where your blind spots are. For style:
  • Be concise. Understand the topic you're writing about. Use simple words and sentences. Put the most important things first. Never use a long word when a short one will do. Explain ideas in simple terms, strongly and clearly, so that they can be rebutted, remixed, reworked — or built upon. Concise explanations accelerates making decisions and make ideas useful. One idea can more easily be combined with another idea to form a third idea!
  • Be Useful. Before you start writing, ask yourself: What purpose does this serve? Who is going to read it? What do they need to know?
  • Be specific. Avoid vague language (remove qualifiers). Cut the fluff. Delete unnecessary words. Say what you mean. Make positive statements about reality.
    • You can almost always replace an adverb with a better, more specific verb, or describe what you mean instead. Remove the adverb and commit to saying whatever you're saying.
    • Instead of using constructions with "of" or "for", rewrite the sentence to put more information before the noun.
  • Be consistent.
  • Add rhythm. Vary the sentence length to break the monotony.
• Use the active voice.
• Write in a conversational tone. Think about readers when writing.
• Divide things into small chunks and if you have multiple points in a text, number them to make replies easier. List the points you want to make in a logical order. This allows you to remove the clutter and avoid confusion. Use the Minto Pyramid or another standard structure like this one:
  • Decide what you're actually saying. Define a clear thesis. State the main point before you give the reasoning that leads to it.
    • What is your main point? Who are you writing for?
  • Support your thesis with arguments. Repeat yourself (within reason). Look for ways that you can restate your point, clarify, or provide closure for the reader.
  • Declare and reject the antithesis.
  • Conclusions.
• Use positive language rather than negative language.
• Human beings are wired to respond to storytelling. A story arc is a way to structure ideas to tap into this response, typically by describing a change in the world. This applies to everything, e.g: Public Speaking
• Don't fully think through your ideas before writing. It's inefficient. The best way to think is by writing. It compels your brain to connect the dots. Write whatever helps you think better.
• Don't try to persuade people that the idea is true/good. Instead, try to accurately describe where the idea came from, the path which led you to think it's true/plausible/worth a look. In the process, you'll probably convey your own actual level of uncertainty, which is exactly the right thing to do.
• Be self-aware about your knowledge level on a topic, and say "I'm not sure…"" when you are not sure about something.
• Separate the processes of creation from improving. You can't write and edit. Write the first draft fast, then iterate on it editing things. Much of this editing will be cutting, and that makes simple writing even simpler.
• Beware of "this". Scan your words for words like "this" or "that", and when in doubt about clarity, replace them with whatever their intended antecedents are.
• You can use tools like Hemingway or Ludwig to improve.
  • The point of editing is to think about how you're using language and to make choices that suit the message you want to deliver, not to unquestioningly follow rules—mine or anyone else's.
• When writing tutorials or guides, use the second-person and describe actions to a user. These types of content talks to people when humans can't. Technical documentation follows the same rules than normal writing.
  • Make it fun!
• The skills you learn by writing transfer to speaking. Being good at speaking makes you more persuasive.
• If it's not written down, it's not.
• Good nonfiction has three qualities:
  1. It gets to the point.
  2. It is interesting. Written from your own experience, in your personal voice.
  3. It is grounded in reality.
• Reading is the inhale, writing is the exhale. Breathe.
• To write fast:
  1. Get topic to write about.
  2. Quickly write the outline.
  3. Repeat 2 for each section recursively, until the lowest-level sections are small enough to not need outlines.
  4. Speedrun. Without caring about quality, fill in each outline (starting at the lowest level) until the whole doc is filled out.
  5. Enjoy the feeling of being 90% done while you go back and perfect the doc, color the title text, add pictures, etc.

Executable Writing

If you have already written lots of concept-oriented atomic around the topic, your task is more like editing than composition. You can make an outline by shuffling the note titles, write notes on any missing material, and edit them together into a narrative.

Instead of having a task like "write an outline of the first chapter" you have a task like "find notes which seem relevant" Each step feels doable.

Starting Points

• This is a thing that happened to me recently that was amusing.
• This is a thing that happened to me recently that was annoying.
• I disagreed with someone over a thing. Here is a persuasive piece for my side of the disagreement.
• Here is a thing people often fail to understand.
• Here is a thing people do that is annoying.
• This is a thing people new to my job often get wrong.
• This is a thing people who interact with people who do my job often get wrong.
• This is a thing I am trying to learn. This pushes you to understand topics better. Sometimes the gaps in our knowledge only become clear when explaining things to others.
• This is a review of a book I read recently.
• This is a review of a film I watched recently.
• Here is a cool thing about the place I live.
• Here is a thing that makes my life better when people do it.
• Here is a thing that makes my life worse when people do it.
• This is a thing I know that you might not have heard about.
• This is a thing I learned recently that I was surprised I had not heard about.