How do you get to write so well in HN?

If you are a undisciplined writer like me, you will have to find the theme of your post after writing it. In the goulash of your initial stream of writing, look for a kernel or thought that clarifies your point. Use that kernel as a logic driver to select words and organize your sentences in support of that theme. You know you are have found the kernel when you start removing words. ;)

The lessons for getting started are quite standard. First, you need three books or, now, Web sites, one for each of a good English dictionary, a good English grammar, and a good book on rhetoric. For a dictionary, sure, something by, say, Webster's. For grammar, something used in senior English in high school or freshman English in college. For rhetoric, sure, Strunk and White, The Elements of Style. Not nearly new stuff. For more, The Chicago Manual of Style can provide clear answers to some tricky questions, good answers not easy to find elsewhere.

Then you iterate: (1) You write something, a postcard, an e-mail, a birthday card, a blog post, a love letter, an elevator pitch, a term paper, etc. Hopefully you can get others to read what you wrote and get some feedback or at least some reactions. Then with what you noticed yourself while writing and from the feedback, you identify some issues or problems in your writing. (2) You read, hopefully well written material. Here maybe the best is good material from the STEM fields and good material from the world of literature. In that reading, you try to see how that writing solved the problems you noticed so far in your writing. And you try to learn more. Then you return to (1) and iterate again.

Then for the iterations of (1) and (2), devote at least 10 years before you expect a lot of improvement. Good writing skills are likely the most difficult learning considered in education, and I say that is a devoted STEM student with high contempt for belle lettre. As a college prof, I saw that the adult evening students, while not very good as students, were much better at writing than even the good students of usual college age -- the extra years of reading and writing, in a deliberate effort to learn more or not, were the huge difference. Net, the learning takes years -- call that decades.

For STEM writing, there are some special techniques. Maybe the best, pure form of these techniques and, thus, the easiest to place to learn is in the best quality pure math and mathematical physics. For pure math, sure, emphasize Halmos, Rudin, Bourbaki, von Neumann, Breiman, Neveu, authors of college texts on abstract algebra, e.g., Herstein, etc. There are lots of highly polished freshman calculus texts, and can learn a lot about STEM field writing from those examples. A good text on freshman college physics also has some really good lessons to teach on STEM field writing. Maybe you want the math/physics and maybe not, but there are good writing lessons there. For writing in computer science, sure, like it or not, Knuth's, The Art of Computer Programming. Knuth's a good writer on computing, e.g., just his The TeXBook is some especially good STEM field writing.

For literature, one of the main goals, whether they say so or not, is art as in the common definition of the communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion. To oversimplify, call such writing belle lettre.

With some irony, belle lettre commonly is really good communicating the passion, pathos, poignancy, plight, and pain, and other such awful alliteration, of the human condition but otherwise nearly useless at communicating something effective to alleviate the pain, etc. Then the STEM fields and its writing are less good at the emotional communications but now in this the 21st century often just astoundingly good at getting really solid, safe, effective solutions to the pains. Which you prefer is your choice!

Or, in simple terms, do you want to suffer with the pains or do something about them? Yes, I know this remark is judgmental, provocative, potentially pejorative, and other such awful alliteration. Here people can agree to disagree, and YMMV.

I'm no good at writing, but the above is the best I know about learning how to do it. And a lot that I'm saying is quite standard -- not nearly new, for more awful alliteration.

Go for it. And, here on HN, show us what you're getting and what you've got! When you've got lessons for other learners, show us those, too!

Good news: There are a lot of people who are plenty bright enough to write really well but are nowhere nearly bright enough to have anything worth saying! Lesson: Don't have to be very bright to write well! Or, if you are bright enough to have something to say, then nearly necessarily you are more than bright enough to be able to learn to say it well!

Well, the original question was specific to writing. The author in fact does not say whether English is a second language.

Most of my writing is learned from reading.

A lot of perceived quality is by subconscious shibboleth: they'll think better of you if you don't make the slight errors other people make. Go consume Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.

Go ahead, take a swim in this ocean of mediocrity. See the button below the box? It says add comment. Not 'Submit Dissertation'. Not 'Final Opinion'. Just remarks made in passing. Like tears, in rain.

Don't try to imitate 'diction' or 'mastery'. Express yourself as simply as you can.

And don't feel bad if you can't express something naturally in English. There are limits to the language. You are most likely able to imagine things you cannot precisely say in English.