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Write like you talk

paulgraham.com

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Re: Write like you talk

#151

Post by urs2102 »

_delirium wrote: post #45
urs2102 wrote: post #5

I've always written essays on ideas, but it wasn't until when I wanted to start publishing my writing on a blog that I found this idea true. Often times flowery language can sacrifice the clarity of your prose for attempting to appear more thoughtful than you are. It's a lot like the Richard Feynman idea that if you can't distill something to a freshman lecture, you don't really understand it.[1] [1]: Feynman, Six No…

Opposite to you, I'm often wary of conversational writing for exactly that reason: "Attempting to appear more thoughtful than you are". Especially a certain style of very breezy, self-assured conversational writing, that doesn't have any nuance or caveats, and hand-waves over anything too technical or specific. Writers use that style to lay things out "like they really are". Let's boil down all this egghead complexit…

> Let's boil down all this egghead complexity and get to what matters.

You actually be may be right - this Gladwell style of writing is usually quite dangerous, because it does give the reader the sense that they really know what they are talking about, because they are "getting to what matters" (which is obviously very subjective).

The one thing I will argue though is that simple writing communicates the author's point more effectively than using flowerly language. The writer may be wrong, but at least I have much clearer sense of what they mean. By getting to "what matters", I find it easier to determine that they have "what matters" wrong. It is easier to refute the central thesis if the argument is presented without cruft, rather than an argument where flowery prose clouds the thesis.

I find that a mix of a conversational tone followed by technical details is usually the most effective for me. It's one of the reasons I appreciate mathematics within writing - it tends to be much more clear.

Although I do think you are right about Gladwell & Co, I am refering more to MBA-speak - which tends to use large empty words to convey ideas which pretend to have more depth than they really do.

Re: Write like you talk

#152

Post by baddox »

> You don't need complex sentences to express complex ideas.

I think that precision and clarity are top concerns, but I don't conflate precision and clarity with simplicity or colloquialism. It's strictly true that you don't need complex sentences to express complex ideas, but I think that complex sentences provide more precision and clarity for complex ideas. As always, know your audience—I don't dispute that there will always be demand for simple digestible explanations of extremely complex ideas (e.g. theoretical physics).

> When specialists in some abstruse topic talk to one another about ideas in their field, they don't use sentences any more complex than they do when talking about what to have for lunch.

No, but I suspect that when they need the utmost precision and clarity, they write, and I suspect they write rather complex sentences. I saw a recent interview where a U.S Supreme Court justice mentioned that a huge portion of the work that goes on while deliberating a case is written, even though the justices are presumably on speaking terms and are quite capable of getting together and discussing things verbally.

Re: Write like you talk

#153

Post by dreeves »

err4nt wrote: post #98
dreeves wrote: post #39

Funny, I just wrote "The Out-Loud-To-Your-Friend-Constraint For Writing" -- http://expost.padm.us/outloud (It's kind of self-indulgent musing on the idea of constraints for writing.) And for customer support we call this the BFF Heuristic -- http://blog.beeminder.com/curtain Excerpt: "If you read what you've written to a user out loud and it's possible to tell that it's not being spoken to your best friend, rewrite i…

This is really great advice and I meant to hit tbe up arrow friend, but I'm not sure which arrow I tapped and now I can't see or correct it :/ I really like the idea of the BFF heuristic, but I also think people should try to read writing, especially emails, as though they are coming from a BFF too! I've seen time after time where a friend reads an email, and each time they reread it theh get more angry, but when I l…

Absolutely. In fact, that's the next piece of advice in that blog post. Excerpt:

"The best-friend heuristic has another benefit: If a user is ever frustrated or annoyed or hostile, put on rose-colored glasses and willfully reinterpret their tone as helpful and constructive -- something your friend would say because they genuinely want to help you improve -- and respond with the appropriate tone of gratitude."

Re: Write like you talk

#154

Post by OJFord »

rdancer wrote: post #141
OJFord wrote: post #136

I think this is rubbish advice. I'd much rather we all spoke on first attempt like we write after thoughtful review. I'm reminded of the (gradual) removal of all Latin from British legislation with a view to making it more 'accessible', at the obvious expense of the concise preciseness that the language afford: "with having changed the things requiring changing" is rather less economical than "mutatis mutandis". In a…

> "thanks to .. for reading drafts of this" What's the Latin for that?

Ha! Mine's not strong enough to say, though I suspect it would only be 3-4 words ('with-thanks-to .. for-the-reading-of' if you see what I mean).

I didn't mean that sentence amused me for uneconomical English, but that it was funny to think about a piece titled 'write like you talk' going through multiple draft stages.

Re: Write like you talk

#155

Post by douche »

shanusmagnus wrote: post #126
kanzure wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you've ever read a verbatim transcript of an interview or conversation, you'll know that actual speech is anything but clear When I go to conferences and sit in the audience, I type transcripts in real-time. I somewhat agree with you, but I have some other evidence that I don't know what to do with: http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/ I have found that some people are amazingly well spoken. Absurdly well spoken,…

Other replies mention the atypical preparedness of presentation text; but I have noticed what you describe in normal life, in normal conversation: some people do indeed seem to speak as if they'd had a chance to revise the sentences / paragraphs in advance. Is it that they care more, and a lifetime's practice has resulted in that kind of automatic organization?

Quite often, I'll have run through a whole series of variations on the probable avenues that a conversation or meeting could take. If you deal regularly with the other party in the conversation, you can often predict with pretty good accuracy what they are going to say. Most spoken communication is just trudging through the same well-established ruts, and throwing out the same sound-bite loops.

Eventually you get to the point that you know that when subject X comes up, Bob is going to deploy his well-worn chestnut that you've heard 147 times before, and you can damn-near repeat it word-for-word.

Re: Write like you talk

#156

Post by firebones »

Write like you think, not like you talk.

I do not talk like I think. Something is broken in that pathway. I'm better at writing. I've watched my son, who has trouble writing, express himself for papers via Dragon Dictate. Literally "write like you talk". And it is a mess. Stream of consciousness, betting on the reader picking up social cues, etc.

It is rare to find someone who can both write and talk with the same words and phrasing.

Although I do agree with the post in the sense of "don't stilt your prose". Don't adopt someone else's written voice, or a perceived style. (If you have the skills to do that, you have the skills to write better...so do that instead.)

Re: Write like you talk

#157

Post by xiaoma »

I'm really torn on this one. In the abstract, I agree with the main argument of this essay. However, it saddens me to see PG planning to write more like he speaks. His writing is so good that it's been life changing for me, but I only find his talks mediocre. It truly would be a pity if he took his own advice to heart and lost some of the essay-writing awesome sauce.

Re: Write like you talk

#158

Post by justsee »

> But just imagine calling Picasso "the mercurial Spaniard" when talking to a friend.

Consider the UK talking heads landscape is filled with individuals with a formidable command of the English language and pg's example comes across as very parochial and culturally ignorant.

Perhaps the essay should be 'Write like I talk', because I can't imagine how he would deal with an episode of QI with Stephen Fry holding forth.

Re: Write like you talk

#159

Post by dingo_bat »

logicallee wrote: post #89
ageofwant wrote: post #66

Not one mention of Strunk and White: "Elements of Style" in a piece about writing ? Paul Graham does not know shit about writing.

If you keep making comments like this one, which is in a totally inappropriate style, you will end up being silently banned from HN (I mean that this sometimes happens, I didn't downvote you); which is a shame judging from your other brief and on-point comments. This really isn't reddit.

What is inappropriate about the style? This is a genuine question. I am not a native speaker and I think I might be missing something that is obvious to you.

Re: Write like you talk

#160

Post by flipside »

gh02t wrote: post #96
stupidcar wrote: post #38

If you've ever read a verbatim transcript of an interview or conversation, you'll know that actual speech is anything but clear. When talking off the cuff, even the most clear minded people tend to ramble, um and ahh, double back, talk across each other, and jump between points and subjects. When listening to someone in person, our brains seem to edit what they say on the fly to make it comprehendible, focusing on th…

Indeed, "write like you talk" is not quite the right way to go about it. In my experience that usually leads to a stream-of-consciousness mess. However, one thing I have found almost universally helps my students is similar: read what you have written OUT LOUD. Is it halting and hard to read? Confusing and obtuse? Then you should probably fix it. There seems to be some magic about actually speaking the words out loud…

So in short, "talk what you write" might be better advice than "write like you talk".
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