Ask HN: How to get better at writing?

A lot of people are saying "read a lot" and "write a lot". These are necessary, but if you want to improve as much as possible you should be doing more than this. Imagine if you asked a musician how they learned their craft and they said all they did was listen to music and play? That they never took a lesson or course, and never read about music (just listened)?

If you want to improve as much as possible, you also need to study. This means reading good works on writing, getting in situations where you get advice and critiques, and analyzing writing (which is more than just reading).

I wound up in a job where I reviewed and edited other people's writing regularly and this was also immensely helpful. It made me really get analytical about what worked or didn't, and shone a light on some things that could be better in my own work - both from reading writing that was good and helping correct and provide feedback on writing that was bad.

OTOH I really like the Pinker "A Sense of Style", "Dreyer's English", "On Writing Well", "Steering the Craft", and "The Making of a Story". (There are lots of others I like too, but these are top of mind.)

1. Pretend you must pay $1 for every word. Cut accordingly. 2. After you've written the first draft of your essay/chapter, delete the first paragraph entirely. This usually helps. 3. Write like you speak, and you'll find your voice faster. 4. Vary your sentence structure. 5. Periods are almost always better than colons, semi-colons, or dashes. 6. Read quality writing as much as possible. 7. Write and edit on different days.

I completely agree with the advice in this article, in a slightly different way. I write a blog, which is more or less like an online journal for me to dump my emotions into. However, I don't end up publishing all of my journal entries, and not even in the correct chronological sequence. I write a lot of shitty first drafts. *The idea is to dump all your ideas without prejudice against imperfection*. Eventually, a few weeks later I pick up those terrible first drafts again and rewrite them.