I've failed at writing. In its cathartic process I sketched.
https://medium.com/@solidi/the-one-about-blogging-cd9e65a205...
Write Simply
141–150 of 354 posts
Re: Write Simply
#142Meh. Reducing language to a mere communication tool also destroys much of its beauty, meaning, and ability to inspire or motivate us. I don't think it's a coincidence that the loss of interest in poetry has coincided with a general loss of respect for literary culture. I had this impression recently while reading the Akbarnama , which is a sort of court-approved biography of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. It was written b…
Most complicated writing of the kind PG is complaining about isn't beautiful, though. It's verbose and clumsy and full of less good replacements for common words, like "purchase" instead of "buy", "utilize" instead of "use" and so on. Or it has flowery phrases that add nothing. A recent example is Github's recent blog post about a security vulnerability they fixed [0]. Its opening paragraph: "On the evening of March…
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Re: Write Simply
#143This advice: to write "simply", like much writing advice offered by people who have not studied communication, is pathetic.
Why? Because it offers nothing concrete that can help a given piece of writing or your writing in general.
To illustrate, consider comparing pieces of writing:
A caveat: its hard to set up a worthwhile comparison in the absence of context, meaning external information that pinpoints the points of comparisons. To keep this short, I'll propose and discuss two common comparisons that writers and readers make. Feel free to challenge these instances:
1. Grading tests.
The purpose of grades is exactly to offer a reductionist evaluation that explicitly identifies the "better" answer. Please agree that grading becomes more difficult as one moves from true false, to multiple choice through short answer and finally to essay exams. Taken to the extreme, awarding a Pulitzer prize is a form of grading.
Under conventional definitions of simple, as one moves toward that extreme, isn't it difficult to justify ever calling the simpler answer better?
To me, the limiting case of this claim cribs from Occam's razor. The exact same answer, is better, if its shorter. Again to me, this is a difficult case to make, and ultimately is question begging, because it assumes the grader knows two answers are the same. (Notably to this hacker news community, there is a special case covering whether shorter code performing the same task is better.)
Being more sympathetic to the advice giver (and in line with other comments), the advice really concerns clarity, conciseness, coherence or something similar. It is not controversial to say that, all else equal, the answer possessing this quality is better. (Does this claim require the sameness stipulation? It would makes discussions of that quality more interesting.)
Thus, the advice is either wrong or mislabeled.
2. Revising writing.
Whether stated or not, revision is the signal target of all writing advice. To use the same framework, the author has two pieces, the current piece and a future piece. Of course, the author wants to make the future piece "better"
Leaving the point about clarity and its cousins aside, there are obvious cases where simpler is better. For example, the exact same piece is better absent extraneous material. Put another way, cutting the material only improves the piece if it is extraneous. You can see where this leads: more empty advice.
The bottom line here is that simple is underspecified. It has no value without a much, and probably impossible to formulate, stronger definition of simple.
So, trying to be constructive, what would, concretely, improve a given piece or your writing in general? Try this:
Instead of editing down a given piece - trying to make it simpler - write two pieces for the same context, maximizing the differences between each. This takes time, but it is a much better exercise, especially for the beginner, than going back and forth with the same piece.
I guarantee that having two pieces (not paragraphs, sentences, words or other subsets of the piece) will lead to a much better final piece, even novel, than having one piece and real or potential variants.
Next, and this is the best "piece" of advice, I have: have others read your work - as many as you can, and discuss it with them as much as possible.
TLDR Good writing takes work and conscious practice
Re: Write Simply
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main issue with the article is the imperative title. It's not "here's why I like to write in this style." It's telling the reader to write that way. Sorry but no, I won't write the way you do because you tell me to. edit: the point of my comment is not that I won't write that way. It's that the author is talking about his own preferences, but the title makes it sound prescriptive. In a way it illustrates the oppo…
Surely you can work through that and pick out the parts you find useful/interesting, no? Or are you saying the assertive voice makes that harder?
The commenter is not saying the writing has no value. They're saying that the main issue is the prescriptive title.
Re: Write Simply
#145Meh. Reducing language to a mere communication tool also destroys much of its beauty, meaning, and ability to inspire or motivate us. I don't think it's a coincidence that the loss of interest in poetry has coincided with a general loss of respect for literary culture. I had this impression recently while reading the Akbarnama , which is a sort of court-approved biography of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. It was written b…
I can't get over that your comment starts with "Meh." – which seems to go against everything it goes on to say.
Re: Write Simply
#146Taken to the extreme this advice leads to collections like Randall Munroe's Thing Explainer or Dr Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham.
Re: Write Simply
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main issue with the article is the imperative title. It's not "here's why I like to write in this style." It's telling the reader to write that way. Sorry but no, I won't write the way you do because you tell me to. edit: the point of my comment is not that I won't write that way. It's that the author is talking about his own preferences, but the title makes it sound prescriptive. In a way it illustrates the oppo…
This is weirdly sensitive. Like the guy who sees guitar lessons advertised on the bulletin board and gets mad because he doesn’t want guitar lessons.
No, that's not the point. I'm not talking about _me_ specifically, I'm talking about how the article has a prescriptive title. It implies that everyone should write this way. In reality it's about the author's preferences.
Re: Write Simply
#148Meh. Reducing language to a mere communication tool also destroys much of its beauty, meaning, and ability to inspire or motivate us. I don't think it's a coincidence that the loss of interest in poetry has coincided with a general loss of respect for literary culture. I had this impression recently while reading the Akbarnama , which is a sort of court-approved biography of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. It was written b…
Most complicated writing of the kind PG is complaining about isn't beautiful, though. It's verbose and clumsy and full of less good replacements for common words, like "purchase" instead of "buy", "utilize" instead of "use" and so on. Or it has flowery phrases that add nothing. A recent example is Github's recent blog post about a security vulnerability they fixed [0]. Its opening paragraph: "On the evening of March…
I think it does add information. “Out of an abundance of caution” is a stock phrase that means “we don’t think this is currently a problem but it’s a prudent thing to do”. Without it, the statement is open to interpretation: were any users actually affected?
Re: Write Simply
#149The idea of "trying" to write is in the last two of PG's essays.
I would just like to reveal that the word "essay" comes from French verb "essayer" which means "to try".
This makes the phrase "trying to write an essay" somewhat tautological doesn't it?
I'm curious whether PG knows this little fact.
If language is like a 6th sense into a shared platonic realm of ideas, it wouldn't be unsurprising that PG is able to survey the concept of "essays" accurately without knowing its etymology.
Re: Write Simply
#150Great article.
There are people who want to communicate ideas to as wide an audience as possible. Those people will instinctively use speech and writing in a way that is most accessible.
There are people who want to intimidate, or impress. Those people will hide behind jargon and lingo.