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The Most Important Writing Lesson I Ever Learned

blog.stevenpressfield.com

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Re: The Most Important Writing Lesson I Ever Learned

#11

Post by swombat »

codemonkey wrote: post #5

My project advisor once gave me a piece of advice that changed everything I've written since for the better. After apologizing for the forthcoming crudeness, she passed on this gem: You're writing "Mary was fucked by John." You /should/ be writing "John fucked Mary." I can say what I need to say in half the words now.

Passive vs active voice is certainly useful, but it's only one of many, many bits of writing craft.

If you want a whole lot more of those, I suggest Strunk & White: http://www.bartleby.com/141/

Re: The Most Important Writing Lesson I Ever Learned

#12

Post by marcofloriano »

codemonkey wrote: post #5

My project advisor once gave me a piece of advice that changed everything I've written since for the better. After apologizing for the forthcoming crudeness, she passed on this gem: You're writing "Mary was fucked by John." You /should/ be writing "John fucked Mary." I can say what I need to say in half the words now.

Brilliant !

Re: The Most Important Writing Lesson I Ever Learned

#13

Post by marcofloriano »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #2

One of the most important lessons about writing that I ever learned was to make sure people could read what you wrote. Here is a screenshot of my browser window opened onto the article in question. http://www.penzba.co.uk/StevenPressfield.jpg It will be ironic if this is one of those occasions that my ISP fails to serve the page, but if you get a "forbidden" or similar, hit "Reload". So, for those of you who run web…

What´s your browser ? Looks like Netscape ...

Re: The Most Important Writing Lesson I Ever Learned

#14

Post by talison »

swombat wrote: post #11
codemonkey wrote: post #5

My project advisor once gave me a piece of advice that changed everything I've written since for the better. After apologizing for the forthcoming crudeness, she passed on this gem: You're writing "Mary was fucked by John." You /should/ be writing "John fucked Mary." I can say what I need to say in half the words now.

Passive vs active voice is certainly useful, but it's only one of many, many bits of writing craft. If you want a whole lot more of those, I suggest Strunk & White: http://www.bartleby.com/141/

"On Writing Well" by Zinsser is also worthwhile:

http://bit.ly/2wH4VC (link to Google Books)

Re: The Most Important Writing Lesson I Ever Learned

#15

Post by crux_ »

swombat wrote: post #11
codemonkey wrote: post #5

My project advisor once gave me a piece of advice that changed everything I've written since for the better. After apologizing for the forthcoming crudeness, she passed on this gem: You're writing "Mary was fucked by John." You /should/ be writing "John fucked Mary." I can say what I need to say in half the words now.

Passive vs active voice is certainly useful, but it's only one of many, many bits of writing craft. If you want a whole lot more of those, I suggest Strunk & White: http://www.bartleby.com/141/

Good as well: Politics & The English Language. (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm)

Re: The Most Important Writing Lesson I Ever Learned

#16

Post by unalone »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #7
jacquesm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works fine for me and is actually quite good. Just to be sure I checked it in konqueror too (4.2.2) and it works there too.

I can read it fine when I highlight the text. And the article is quite good - yes. I've up-mud it. My point remains. I'm actually technically fairly competent compared with most of my customers. If either of my companies served a web page like that, half my customers wouldn't be able to read it. Is that my problem?? Or theirs? It's my problem. If you have a web page, you need to decide where the cut-off is. The autho…

Give it another try. Sometimes loading a page doesn't work and refreshing fixes it.

Also: With all respect, supporting Konqueror is really stretching support. It's got practically no market share, and isn't even the most popular Linux browser. I'm surprised it isn't working, though: I thought it ran WebKit, and so wouldn't mess up.

Re: The Most Important Writing Lesson I Ever Learned

#17

Post by logicalmind »

zupatol wrote: post #10
RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's a reply to me, I'm not sure I understand you. The page does not render in a readable fashion in my (only slightly) elderly browser. I'm not sure what that has to do with email. Have I missed your point? Could you expand on it a little? Thanks.

It looks more like a reply to the guy who ran out of space in his gmail account. How did it get here? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=850827

Good question, a wormhole in the continuation mechanism? ;-)

Re: The Most Important Writing Lesson I Ever Learned

#18

Post by saurabh »

bk wrote: post #8

"Have you ever noticed how other people's stuff is shit, and your own shit is stuff?" - George Carlin

As much as I respect George, I think its reverse applies to us hackers

"Have you ever noticed how other people's shit is stuff, and your own stuff is shit?"

Re: The Most Important Writing Lesson I Ever Learned

#20

Post by RyanMcGreal »

swombat wrote: post #11
codemonkey wrote: post #5

My project advisor once gave me a piece of advice that changed everything I've written since for the better. After apologizing for the forthcoming crudeness, she passed on this gem: You're writing "Mary was fucked by John." You /should/ be writing "John fucked Mary." I can say what I need to say in half the words now.

Passive vs active voice is certainly useful, but it's only one of many, many bits of writing craft. If you want a whole lot more of those, I suggest Strunk & White: http://www.bartleby.com/141/

The problem with The Elements of Style is that White flagrantly, persistently and delightfully violates his own rules. Given that his writing is unfailingly charming and enjoyable to read, I have to wonder about value of those rules.
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