Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How do you write great sentences, paragraphs, or articles?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 86 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do you write great sentences, paragraphs, or articles?

#21

Post by Paul8 »

spenrose wrote: post #11

Here is a well-reviewed book on this topic: http://www.amazon.com/Style-Clarity-Chicago-Writing-Publishing/dp/0226899152/ From the editorial reviews: "Telling me to 'Be clear,' " writes Joseph M. Williams in Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, "is like telling me to 'Hit the ball squarely.' I know that. What I don't know is how to do it." If you are ever going to know how to write clearly, it will be after reading Willi…

Joseph M. Williams's "Style: Toward Clarity and Grace" is by far the best book on learning HOW to put sentences and paragraphs together. It teaches principles that I've never seen anywhere else -- principles for making my writing easy to understand.

Then it teaches methods for applying those principles.

So instead of teaching rules, it teaches how writing can be clear. Instead of "don't use passives" it shows when a passive verb makes the writing easier to read. It teaches how much new information to put in a sentence and where to put it. And it shows how to connect this sentence to the next for simple flow.

Re: Ask HN: How do you write great sentences, paragraphs, or articles?

#22

Post by e12e »

The best single source I've come across that helps with writing, is "On Writing Well":

http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary-Nonficti...

It has plenty of examples and advice on various types of writing.

Beyond that, my advice is to simply read good texts. One starting point would be:

http://www.amazon.com/American-Essays-Charles-B-Shaw/dp/B000...

Or, for something newer:

http://brevity.org/misc/bestswi.html

While doing a quick search, I also came across this:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2009/05/20/need-examples-...

Which seems to be a great starting point.

Re: Ask HN: How do you write great sentences, paragraphs, or articles?

#23

Post by aidian »

Read all the time; write all the time.

As far as 'process', play with different stuff and find what works for you. I find it does help to outline a bit -- but only in the most informal way. I edit better on paper. Hunter Thompson actually typed The Great Gatsby to get a feel for Fitzgerald's rhythms. Fuck around until something fits.

Edit your copy ruthlessly. I will routinely change 90% of my copy between first and final drafts.

Keep your audience in mind: who you're writing for should affect every word.

Write as tight as possible.

Re: Ask HN: How do you write great sentences, paragraphs, or articles?

#24

Post by mseebach »

There are a number of tools available, but as with programming, it's primarily a question of being able to recognize great writing. Once you can recognize great writing, you can more or less just iterate: 1) Write 2) Is it great? (yes) Done (no) Go to 1.

Bad programmers can't recognize good or bad code, so they stop once it works. Same for bad writers.

Re: Ask HN: How do you write great sentences, paragraphs, or articles?

#25

Post by evanx »

i go with the "less or more" - it might not have more information per se, but more people will read more of it

can you express the same idea using less words for the sentence in question?

can you eliminate or combine sentences/paragraphs to still get the essential point across ?

sacrifice some extra information for the sake of clearer focus

having said that, i like to add non-essential information which is humourous - to keep the reader entertained and engaged

Re: Ask HN: How do you write great sentences, paragraphs, or articles?

#27

Post by pdog »

Vladimir Nabokov, whose prose style ranks among the best, said: “Style and structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash.”

The vast majority of writers and bloggers today use a truncated writing style (perhaps reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway or Raymond Carver).

You can present your ideas like this, clearly and coherently, but the best essays and articles do something more than just articulate ideas.

Re: Ask HN: How do you write great sentences, paragraphs, or articles?

#28

Post by [deleted] »

ams6110 wrote: post #9

Get a copy of The Elements of Style . It's like K&R for writing. Then practice. Join a local writing group. Write essays. Keep a journal. Write letters to the editor or guest columns for the local paper. Blog. Etc. Like anything else, the way to learn something is to do it. Edit: also read a lot, and try to identify writing that resonates with you, and then work out why that is.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How do you write great sentences, paragraphs, or articles?

#30

Post by danso »

You already covered "favour the concrete over the abstract" but I do think "show, don't tell" can't be reiterated enough.

The biggest problem I find when editing other people's writing is the use of redundant assertions, e.g. "The Acme App is blazingly fast", when factual statements will do: "In the same time it took for CompetitorApp to load, the AcmeApp had already performed 2 qunitpleflops of foos"

A harmful side effect of the "tell" approach is the huge amount of time people spend thesaurus-hacking: trying to find different adjectives to say the same thing, over and over.

I know your question is about overall coherency and flow, but unfortunately many writers fail at the basic general rules, which makes it difficult to polish the body of writing as a whole.

For a practical step, I suggest writing the entirety of the piece without adjectives, and perhaps without concern for transitions. If the writing is nonsensicial or uninteresting in its barest form, then the writer should focus on better content. The style is easy to add later.

Post reply on HN