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Good Writing

paulgraham.com

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Re: Good Writing

#121

Post by twodave »

I think I agree with the central point here. I think the key phrase is “internal consistency”. This is also very true of programming. It’s difficult to build good software without having a handle on the subject matter (and/or a domain expert to get feedback from).

But often writing is also a process of discovery. Maybe you are trying to write something that hasn’t been written about before. This is like building software without a spec. You can still write well and be irrelevant, just as one can build great software upon bad assumptions and fail to sell it. This doesn’t make it bad writing in its own right, but it also may not be very useful to anyone. In my opinion both software and prose should be produced for a purpose.

Thus, if there’s no meaning to it, writing, like software, falls pretty flat.

Re: Good Writing

#122

Post by skybrian »

pdonis wrote: post #110
tshaddox wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t understand why it would be at all safe to conclude this. In any other field, you certainly wouldn’t conclude that good visual design, attention to detail, craftsmanship, etc. indicates anything about the factual or moral correctness of the beliefs of the creators. Do the most beautiful and expensive churches indicate the most moral or theologically correct religious groups? Do the best designed uniforms tell…

You have it backwards. PG agrees that you can't conclude from the fact that something is beautiful that it's also right--he says "we can't safely conclude that beautiful writing is true". What PG is saying is that if something is ugly, you can conclude that it's most likely wrong as well.

You can’t safely conclude that either. It could be a hastily-written rough draft. It could be the result of effort, but written by someone who isn’t fluent in English.

Attention to detail is a signal of quality, but these things are just heuristics, not reliable truths.

Re: Good Writing

#123

Post by Veen »

kristianc wrote: post #103

Interested to know how much Immanuel Kant pg has read. Kant's whole project was about grappling with how the mind structures experience—and how language mediates, rather than transparently transmits, thought. You can never fully get to the thing in itself. I can see how re-editing can make the ideas more coherent within pg's frame of representation, but I'm struggling with the idea that it makes them any more true.

I would like to imagine that pg's obsession with pared-down, simple sentences is a post-traumatic stress response to an early encounter with Kant's prose.

Re: Good Writing

#124

Post by 6stringmerc »

Oh Mr. Graham again. I’m not a fan. I tried to read along, I really did, and then I came upon this sentence:

“But not without method acting.”

This is one of the most terribly written sentences in the English language I’ve seen since getting out of jail in January. It violates every reasonable convention regarding communication. It is terrible and please take note that a person who put this sentence out into the wild, without intentional comedy, is a fucking terrible writer.

Re: Good Writing

#125

Post by chromatic »

tptacek wrote: post #87
gist wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing wise I have a great deal of respect for you (and other top commenters) because you don't have people edit and review what you say you just write it (and take lumps or accolaydes). Something I've mentioned before is I can't get over the fact that Paul has mulitiple people review his essays prior to publishing (which others have defended when I've made the same comment before). I (as most people do) write clien…

I think, as is often the case, there is something to the idea in the post we're commenting on, but it's been taken way too far.

If there's more than "good editing often improves writing" I didn't see it in the essay.

Re: Good Writing

#126

Post by sorcerer-mar »

fogleman wrote: post #43

Possible counterpoint: LLMs are notoriously good at writing plausible sounding ideas that are wrong.

“Plausible sounding” != good sounding in the way that (I think) PG is using it.

LLMs produce plausible, wrong, and very bad prose. Arguably evidence for his point, if anything.

Re: Good Writing

#127

Post by stevetron »

The web site, on my browser, is typical of so many I encounter these days: patently unreadable. Chrome in dark mode renders it white-on-white text. I press contral-a, and it can be read, but it is still not easy.

Re: Good Writing

#128

Post by pdonis »

skybrian wrote: post #122
pdonis wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have it backwards. PG agrees that you can't conclude from the fact that something is beautiful that it's also right--he says "we can't safely conclude that beautiful writing is true". What PG is saying is that if something is ugly, you can conclude that it's most likely wrong as well.

You can’t safely conclude that either. It could be a hastily-written rough draft. It could be the result of effort, but written by someone who isn’t fluent in English. Attention to detail is a signal of quality, but these things are just heuristics, not reliable truths.

> It could be a hastily-written rough draft. It could be the result of effort, but written by someone who isn’t fluent in English.

The article says it is ruling out both of these possibilities, as other posts elsewhere in this discussion have already pointed out.

Re: Good Writing

#129

Post by keiferski »

robertpateii wrote: post #50
keiferski wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t, really, which is okay, because the subtext here is that Pg is writing about essayistic writing, or more specifically, communicating ideas in the form of written words. I don’t think he is commenting on “good writing” in the sense of a novel or line of poetry. Moby Dick is my go-to example of a novel that is incredibly well-written, but I wouldn’t say it’s particularly clear or straightforward in its prese…

Imo, that quote is clearly a train metaphor. But to your point, I do vaguely recall being unclear plenty when I read Moby Dick decades ago.

True, this quote is just one of my favorite from the book and I wanted to share it. There are definitely other more difficult lines in it.

Re: Good Writing

#130

Post by bsaul »

In french we have this very old expression : "ce qui se conçoit bien s'énonce clairement". "what is well understood will be clearly phrased".

It's been consistently used by parents and teachers since the 17th century, so i guess there must be some truth to it.

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