Live data from Hacker News

Writing one sentence per line

sive.rs

161–170 of 307 posts

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#162
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar idea I made a few years ago. A text editor with no editing allowed and lets you export to Word/MD/HTML for later editing https://first-draft.netlify.app

Sweet! If you don't mind sharing, did anyone donate through ko-fi? I think there's still potential in writing tools with decent UX (iA Writer and such) and I know that some people wanted to pay me for Enso, so I'm trying to figure out the best course of action: either charge premium for a premium native app or let the people chip in. Paid products tend to get more valuable feedback.

I just checked and nobody did. I didn't really promote it. Might have helped if I had said what I might do with the money to improve it?

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people learned to add two spaces to the end of each sentence which is now built in to their muscle memory. My father learned to type adding two spaces to the end of every sentence, they tried to teach that to me in computer class in middle school but since I had a lot of experience typing already without it I never felt motivated to change my habit to add two spaces. I never really saw the point, in most formats…

Good typography seems to dictate a wider space after a sentence than between words. So this is a typewriter habit to mimic that kind of thing (like the sibling noted).

Some people might prefer two spaces, but my understanding is that all authorities on “good typography” have standardized on one space:

https://practicaltypography.com/one-space-between-sentences....

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#164
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this makes me angry at all my school teachers for the subjects of [my-native-language] and writing. It is such a simple technique, that makes such a huge impact on ones writing, and yet no teacher bothered to teach it. I spent all my school years writing monotonous essays of five-word sentences. Week after week I would make another one, and I could clearly see for myself that they were bad, I just couldn't te…

as they say: those who can't do, teach

That is five words long.

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#165

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences.…

Reading this makes me angry at all my school teachers for the subjects of [my-native-language] and writing. It is such a simple technique, that makes such a huge impact on ones writing, and yet no teacher bothered to teach it. I spent all my school years writing monotonous essays of five-word sentences. Week after week I would make another one, and I could clearly see for myself that they were bad, I just couldn't te…

This is a problem with most advice on English writing. They only teach you how to write as at a level that a 8 years old reader would understand. Most modern books, fiction or not, are written at a juvenile level, at the formal request of publishers. As a result, the level of reading and comprehension for most people has decreased to a level that is lower than in any other literate society.

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#166
post #56

Slightly off topic, but a pet peeve of mine is how you don't get a real line break in markdown when you insert a newline. Sometime I want a line break without a vertical apace for a new paragraph, I can't be the only one here! I know I can normally just add a br tag, but that looks nasty when you read it as plain text.

Markdown allows you to inline HTML, so just use the tag for a newline. Edit: Oh come now... Editing your post to also say what I replied, then voting me down is poor sportsmanship old chap.

I wrote that bit about br tags before seeing any replies, sorry :p My sportsmanship is immaculate!

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good typography seems to dictate a wider space after a sentence than between words. So this is a typewriter habit to mimic that kind of thing (like the sibling noted).

Some people might prefer two spaces, but my understanding is that all authorities on “good typography” have standardized on one space: https://practicaltypography.com/one-space-between-sentences....

Interesting. I definitely respect Butterick’s opinions on typography.

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#168
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this makes me angry at all my school teachers for the subjects of [my-native-language] and writing. It is such a simple technique, that makes such a huge impact on ones writing, and yet no teacher bothered to teach it. I spent all my school years writing monotonous essays of five-word sentences. Week after week I would make another one, and I could clearly see for myself that they were bad, I just couldn't te…

as they say: those who can't do, teach

They = idiots

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#169
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's about as unnatural for most people as newline per sentence, and has the added risk that you'll accidentally publish like that and it'll look weird. One per line would be _much_ harder to accidentally publish because it's more obvious.

Two spaces between sentences is how I've always typed them, even if it's in HTML or MD or other forms that will condense them into a single space in the final render. The two spaces mark a clear intent to end a sentence instead of a period to punctuate an abbreviation.

Yeah I believe this is a generational thing. I learned double-space as well, but pretty sure not long after me they stopped teaching that, and I've totally stopped doing it.

Re: Writing one sentence per line

#170

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences.…

> The writing is getting boring.

What is this obsession with writing not being boring? If you're reading the passphrase to disarm a nuclear missile do you think you might get bored halfway if the sentences are too long?

I never understood why people insist on having short sentences. Human thought does not come in a small pre-packaged short sentence form. Some of the best philosophers wrote very long sentences, look at Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kant. Let's not dumb ourselves down by sacrificing rich, deep thoughts just because our ADHD might kick in and we might get distracted by the next YouTube cat video.

Post reply on HN