Write for One Person
wizardzines.com
Write for One Person
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Re: Write for One Person
#2Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia
- Kurt VonnegutRe: Write for One Person
#3wizardzines.com is one of the few things I am subscribed to by email <3
Re: Write for One Person
#4> Often this person is me
I wrote an article that never fails to put a smile on my face every time I read it. I felt like I had finally found my own voice. Ran it through Claude and it told me to tone it down a bit, but I ignored the advice and published it anyway.
The article caused people on HN to say I had issues. They weren't exactly wrong, but still. Be careful with what you publish out there. Warm reception is never guaranteed. My one consolation is the fact Bob Nystrom apparently liked it.
Re: Write for One Person
#5I get stuck when I try to post on social and my brain fills up with all the random people I know that have commented or complimented a post. The problem is there are wildly different expectations of what I post. Is anyone else dealing with this?
Lately I've decided to write for ME. What do I want to write about? That has made it a lot easier to get unstuck. That and not looking at the views, likes, etc.
Re: Write for One Person
#6I never try to speak to everyone as a tech writer. Tutorials are for people who'd never used our software before, but even then I could assume a certain level of computer literacy, for example they can launch out software or browse to a URL.
I can make How-to's that can assume they had gone through at least one of the tutorials, but even then I put links to the appropriate tutorials so they could refresh or learn if they needed it.
But lately it seems like people are getting more computer illiterate. So how low do you go? I am getting tempted to add a link to some basic computer literacy.
It's kinda like people complaining about Space Launch System, why aren't we using Saturn V or an improved version of it. We have the blueprints and schematics and everything but it appears there's a gap between what's written down there and what's in the textbooks. A lot of in-between experience has evaporated because shop classes and manufacturing were shut down.
I am realizing that a lot of experience was never written down and turned into institutional knowledge that could be used later. The AI companies would love this but it's gone because it was more cost-effective not to.
Re: Write for One Person
#7> Often this person is me I wrote an article that never fails to put a smile on my face every time I read it. I felt like I had finally found my own voice. Ran it through Claude and it told me to tone it down a bit, but I ignored the advice and published it anyway. The article caused people on HN to say I had issues. They weren't exactly wrong, but still. Be careful with what you publish out there. Warm reception is…
I can't stand it when LLMs tell you to tone it down. Their writing advice is almost universally awful. They want you to write the most cliched bland content possible.
Sometimes I see technical people who feel they aren't good writers, but who have good ideas. They then turn to LLMs, believing that the LLM will help them express their good ideas. They're often right that they have good ideas. But the LLM just turns them to sawdust.
Kudos to spurning the mediocrity conversion machine and hitting publish.
Re: Write for One Person
#8> Often this person is me I wrote an article that never fails to put a smile on my face every time I read it. I felt like I had finally found my own voice. Ran it through Claude and it told me to tone it down a bit, but I ignored the advice and published it anyway. The article caused people on HN to say I had issues. They weren't exactly wrong, but still. Be careful with what you publish out there. Warm reception is…
I can't stand it when LLMs tell you to tone it down. Their writing advice is almost universally awful. They want you to write the most cliched bland content possible. Sometimes I see technical people who feel they aren't good writers, but who have good ideas. They then turn to LLMs, believing that the LLM will help them express their good ideas. They're often right that they have good ideas. But the LLM just turns th…
I don't know. Maybe you'll feel differently if you read my article. It's about conservative garbage collection, but I mythologized it as a story about people escaping the clutches of an orwellian surveillance machine created by technological wizards, until they learn the magical incantations required to find them.
Let's just say I definitely toned it down a bit in my next article.
Re: Write for One Person
#9> Often this person is me I wrote an article that never fails to put a smile on my face every time I read it. I felt like I had finally found my own voice. Ran it through Claude and it told me to tone it down a bit, but I ignored the advice and published it anyway. The article caused people on HN to say I had issues. They weren't exactly wrong, but still. Be careful with what you publish out there. Warm reception is…
Would you be willing to share it again here?
I love reading these personal things - especially the things that people publish in spite of being told they're crazy. In my experience they're usually the more real, honest and raw things in a crazy world where everyone is keeping up appearances and pretending to be normal and sane
Re: Write for One Person
#10And for that matter, /developing/ for one person, often yourself, is probably better than for everyone. I’ll see this with app developers when they’re trying to figure out what kind of app or game to make. Just make the thing you would use!