LaTeX does the same as Markdown and HTML - I used to do this when I was in academia.
Writing one sentence per line
71–80 of 307 posts
Re: Writing one sentence per line
#72Slightly off topic, but a pet peeve of mine is how you don't get a real line break in markdown when you insert a newline. Sometime I want a line break without a vertical apace for a new paragraph, I can't be the only one here! I know I can normally just add a br tag, but that looks nasty when you read it as plain text.
Markdown allows you to inline HTML, so just use the tag for a newline. Edit: Oh come now... Editing your post to also say what I replied, then voting me down is poor sportsmanship old chap.
You can’t downvote direct replies; Only upvote. Meaning any downvotes you’ve received were from others.
Re: Writing one sentence per line
#73Some previous discussion of this writing/coding style (though not of this particular page, which didn't go online until today):
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31695393
https://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2012/one-sentence-per-line/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4642395
http://www.uvm.edu/pdodds/writings/2015-05-13better-writing-...
Re: Writing one sentence per line
#74This is not a bad idea. Any decent toolchain will support rendering as paragraphs, including LaTeX. Another advantage not stated is version control and diffs work much better. You do have to put up with long lines, but most editors support wrapping long lines for display purposes.
I wish I had done this while writing my PhD thesis.
Re: Writing one sentence per line
#75I approach this by separating writing from editing. Just keep writing, ignore the typos, self-censorship or formatting and keep moving. So, I've build myself an app to make that easier. Essentially, it's just a more stupid version of a text box. It's free, it's private, and it's meant to put you in the state of flow. I've been using it every day for the past 3 years or so and I know that some people find it useful to…
Here’s my biggest critique of Enso:
It’s not very easy to send myself a reminder when I’m back at my computer to use it.
Content: i’m currently on my mobile phone and I absolutely adore the idea of Enso (funny enough I’m currently holding & feeding my infant named Enzo). I would like to write with it and try it when I don’t have an infant on my lap but that requires me remembering it and looking it up when back on my laptop and ready to write something.
I added my email on the mobile sign-up but frankly I don’t really want a mobile app as 60% of my long-form mobile writing is done via voice to text and edited later. What I’d like is a “remind me via email to give Enso a try” signup that says “hey, this is a reminder to try Enso… The flow focused, low editing app for creative writing” or something like that.
Re: Writing one sentence per line
#76> Not publishing one sentence per line, no. Write like this for your eyes only.
Many news outlets now use this as standard for publishing.
Random example: every article at https://www.abc.net.au/
I challenge you to find a (non-quote) paragraph with more than one sentence!
Re: Writing one sentence per line
#77This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences.…
That's beautiful. To be fair, and are we not all about being fair around here, he explicitly states: > Not publishing one sentence per line, no. Write like this for your eyes only. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe that there should be no spillage between how you write and how you publish. For example, I found "How to live" unreadable partly because of what I suspect this style of writing did to the publis…
I tend to write prose source code
with line breaks after grammatical units.
I've noticed that since I started doing so,
I've been writing longer paragraphs and sentences,
since the line breaks in the source do for me
what paragraph and sentence breaks do for the reader.
It's something I have to pay attention to.
Re: Writing one sentence per line
#78This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences.…
That's beautiful. To be fair, and are we not all about being fair around here, he explicitly states: > Not publishing one sentence per line, no. Write like this for your eyes only. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe that there should be no spillage between how you write and how you publish. For example, I found "How to live" unreadable partly because of what I suspect this style of writing did to the publis…
GP was echoing the article's point that writing one sentence per line lets you notice, and vary, your line lengths.
Re: Writing one sentence per line
#79This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences.…
My favorite excerpt from that book!
Re: Writing one sentence per line
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's beautiful. To be fair, and are we not all about being fair around here, he explicitly states: > Not publishing one sentence per line, no. Write like this for your eyes only. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe that there should be no spillage between how you write and how you publish. For example, I found "How to live" unreadable partly because of what I suspect this style of writing did to the publis…
I tend to write prose source code with line breaks after grammatical units. I've noticed that since I started doing so, I've been writing longer paragraphs and sentences, since the line breaks in the source do for me what paragraph and sentence breaks do for the reader. It's something I have to pay attention to.
Writing like this works really well for vim and git as well. It makes it easy to delete/move/edit lines (eg with: d2j), and then in git the diffs are by default formatted nicely and contain only sentences.
Though if you wanted to get fancy you could use other vim movement commands (yank the next 2 sentences), I still think it's easier using lines.