Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Write Simply

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 354 posts

Re: Write Simply

#161

Post by throwawaygh »

serverholic wrote: post #50
davidivadavid wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because James Joyce's style isn't "simple" by any stretch of the imagination, I would guess? And the essay presents its position as a general statement void of all context. What context are we supposed to assume here?

Everything has context. Paul Graham is a leader in the startup scene so more than likely he's talking about the types text relevant to startups. Blog posts, press releases, etc. Again, why the fuck would you assume Paul Graham is talking about James Joyce?

I do not have much of an opinion on the underlying debate happening here^1, but I will disagree with this comment.

I do not believe that the article's prescription is confined to business writing.

> Paul Graham is a leader in the startup scene

That is true. But Graham is also a self-described essayist. He was writing long before he started Y Combinator, and his essays often discuss writing as a thing unto itself. For example, his "Nerds" essay mentions that one of his goals for life in high school was to write well^2.

Given that Graham is deeply interested in writing, and that the article doesn't explicitly confine itself to business writing, I think it's quite a stretch to assume that this essay is only talking about business writing.

> Again, why the fuck would you assume Paul Graham is talking about James Joyce?

This is a strawman (and also unnecessarily combative).

--

[^1]: Well, see my top-level comment. But that's not really relevant to this comment.

[^2]: "There was something else I wanted more: to be smart. Not simply to do well in school, though that counted for something, but to design beautiful rockets, or to write well, or to understand how to program computers. In general, to make great things." http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

Re: Write Simply

#162

Post by [deleted] »

voidhorse wrote: post #9

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.“ — Nathaniel Hawthorne (apparently)* There’s definite value to simplicity in writing. At the same time, like all principles, people tend to run with the idea and misapply it. There are some cases in which your work demands a certain level of precision that’s only possible using complex words or jargon. Not to mention, writing that’s a little complicated can be a lot more fun! There…

[deleted]

Re: Write Simply

#163

Post by johnyzee »

voidhorse wrote: post #9

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.“ — Nathaniel Hawthorne (apparently)* There’s definite value to simplicity in writing. At the same time, like all principles, people tend to run with the idea and misapply it. There are some cases in which your work demands a certain level of precision that’s only possible using complex words or jargon. Not to mention, writing that’s a little complicated can be a lot more fun! There…

> “Easy reading is damn hard writing.“

Reminds me of Mark Twain: "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one."

Re: Write Simply

#164

Post by hardwaregeek »

Writing simply is certainly a great skill. It's like playing simply. You should be able to play an instrument without any vibrato or improvisation.

But that doesn't imply you always have to write simply. To often I've had friends who declare that writing in school is dumb and that we should always write simple and short. What's implicit in their view is that the text is not important, simply the message. The text should be merely a vehicle to convey the message.

I'd counter that the text is not extricable from the message. The form and style of the text colors the message and provides a signal of whom the author is speaking to and with what tone. I read a James Baldwin novel and I have the feeling of someone preaching to me with fervor and ferocity. I read a Paul Graham essay and I have the feeling of a drily funny, at times arrogant lecture. Like it or not, PG has a style that is his brand. It's a good brand, but to claim that it's purely simplicity is presumptuous.

Re: Write Simply

#165

Post by davidivadavid »

jamesrcole wrote: post #123
davidivadavid wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "more than likely" he's talking about "the types of text relevant to startups" then surely that would be stated in an essay tooting the virtues of "simple." However, that doesn't appear to be the case. It seems more like Paul Graham might be talking about the kind of writing he does himself. Like essays. However, even in such a case, his point is debatable. Which is what people are doing here — debating. No one is…

I think the essay is clearly about _non-fiction_ writing. It's arguing about how best to communicate ideas (he uses the term 'ideas' several times). Sure, fiction can be trying to communicate things, and sometimes even ideas, but to me it's pretty obvious that the essay isn't trying to give advice for fiction writing in general.

It's pretty obvious to me too. That's not the point.

The essay makes a generic statement about the superiority of a particular, although loosely defined, writing style.

People debate the edge cases of that statement, showing its limits, and pointing to counter examples.

The result is that the content of the essay is reduced to a very banal statement of the type: "All other things being equal, prefer writing something simple rather than not simple." As an aesthetic preference, it's all well and good. As a persuasive argument, rather lacking. It "tries to prove too much."

Re: Write Simply

#166

Post by villasv »

Pinker wrote a whole book about this, much better written, in fact. Unlike an HN essayist, Pinker also is an actual wide-audience best-seller. And unlike this essay, Pinker correctly acknowledges many nuances.

Re: Write Simply

#168

Post by zdragnar »

billfruit wrote: post #137
cranekam wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most complicated writing of the kind PG is complaining about isn't beautiful, though. It's verbose and clumsy and full of less good replacements for common words, like "purchase" instead of "buy", "utilize" instead of "use" and so on. Or it has flowery phrases that add nothing. A recent example is Github's recent blog post about a security vulnerability they fixed [0]. Its opening paragraph: "On the evening of March…

I remember that sort of confounding beaureucratic usage of English being referred to as 'Mandarin' English.

That is interesting, because it implies exactly the opposite of what it seems to.

Mandarin was the official language of the government, and so all regional and local bureaucracies, during the days of dynasties in China. Although it may sound foreign to locals in various provinces, it guaranteed that every part of the government had a common understanding.

Quite the opposite of fluff for fluff's sake.

Re: Write Simply

#169

Post by gonehome »

judofyr wrote: post #119

I think this article ends up giving excellent examples for why you shouldn't just "write simply". There is basically no argumentation happening here and most statements are just thrown out as truths. Yes, it might be quick and easy to read through, but it's not very good writing. Examples: > Plus it's more considerate to write simply. When you write in a fancy way to impress people, you're making them do extra work j…

> "Most authors write in a "fancy" way to invoke a feeling in the reader. They don't add random words to "seem cool"."

I'd bet money this is mostly wrong, and most authors are writing in a fancy way to seem fancy. That's part of the reason their writing is often bad.

There are exceptions, but I'd argue that failure is the general case.

> "I don't understand a thing of this."

Clarity of thought without purple prose fluff? That's my take away from it anyway. Basically, most of the time extra purple prose fluff is not poetry and just gets in the way. Poetry would be an exception to this rule.

This essay is also similar to another one of his from 2015 (which has more explicit examples): http://www.paulgraham.com/talk.html

Re: Write Simply

#170

Post by throwawaygh »

> My goal when writing might be called saltintesta: the ideas leap into your head and you barely notice the words that got them there.

Simple and "saltintesta" writing is effective in many contexts. However, as any critic of Twitter culture can tell you, the style has an important pitfall.

Why do so many people react strongly to seemingly innocuous Graham essays? How does a prescription to "Write Simply" cause such strong emotional reactions?

I think it's in part because Graham writes in a simple and memetic ("saltintesta") style about not-so-simple topics. He writes to a very large audience is filled with readers who have a different latent perspective on that missing detail and nuance. Some of those readers fill in the nuance and context differently from how Graham intended. Unfortunately, they do so while barely noticing the words that got them there! Hence, conflict.

But can we really blame the reader for falling into this pit, when the author's goal was for the words to be barely noticed?

The comments on this article are a case study in the benefits and pitfalls of the Simple and "saltintesta" writing style. The style demands a lot of the reader's latent context. It therefore works well when writing to a group of people who are very much like the author but breaks down when writing across even small differences in culture, life experiences, or values.

Post reply on HN