Ask HN: I find writing difficult, how do I make it easy?

I think external editing/reviewing is key. A sentence you've reworked ten times sounds perfectly reasonable to you because you've read it hundreds of times, but to someone else it may unintelligible garbage.

I'm not sure how your different edited drafts differ. Are they details? For me I first sit down and think of the 'one' story I want my data to tell, from there flows only one single possible draft.

There are two techniques that work for me. Perhaps they will help someone.

First, the empty page. The empty sheet is the hardest to tackle. I dump out the main points I want to convey, in no particular order, and I am often surprised at the narrative arc taking shape. There's content hidden inside ones brain that's occluded by the part that's policing the written style. Concentrate on first getting it out in the form of bullet points, small funny phrases, headlines, etc. You could use powerpoint to restrict yourself from having to think in terms of long sentences. Then you look back and see what your brain has conjured up.

Second, reviewing. When reviewing a draft, for each set of lines that focus on one idea or concept or theme, write a very short description (4-5 words) of the idea on the margin. Now, start from the top and only read the margin annotations. That gives you a feel for the narrative arc. Give an entire para to an idea if it spans a few sentences.

So does everyone. It's like with "clean code" - no-one can write clean code. You write dirty code and keep editing it until it's clean. It's easy to see someone else's 20th draft and think you can't write as good as them. Neither can they.

It's like everything, you're bad when you start doing it, and you get better at it as you do more of it.

> Even after rereading and editing my docs multiple times I am not happy with the outcome.

How many times is "multiple times"? Doesn't sound like too many. A few dozen times wouldn't be unusual among writers. i.e. Editing every day for a month.

> In fact I fall into dilemma on which of my edited drafts should I choose as final version.

So just have one version. If a change doesn't make a sentence better, don't make that change. Sure, sometimes you can't decide which of 2 versions of (say) a sentence is better. So choose the simpler, the one with less words, the less show-offy one, the more direct. Also, put it aside for a few days or a week or two and read again. Choices like that will be obvious again after you get some time-distance.

First is the Economists and the second is the plain language guide: https://plainlanguage.gov/resources/articles/dash-writing-ti...