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

Good Writing

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 345 posts

Re: Good Writing

#191

Post by _1tem »

kurko wrote: post #189

> I think writing that sounds good is more likely to be right. Paul's point would make sense if his case was about greater verisimilitude, which might sound like splitting hairs, but is an important phenomenon in philosophy. Many dictators have sounded good but their core messages were abhorrent. In the same vein, there are thousands of fiction books, some more brilliantly written than others, but nothing in that spe…

> Many dictators have sounded good but their core messages were abhorrent.

Abhorrent does not mean untrue. In fact some of the worst people use truth to evil ends.

Re: Good Writing

#192

Post by deadbabe »

_1tem wrote: post #191
kurko wrote: post #189

> I think writing that sounds good is more likely to be right. Paul's point would make sense if his case was about greater verisimilitude, which might sound like splitting hairs, but is an important phenomenon in philosophy. Many dictators have sounded good but their core messages were abhorrent. In the same vein, there are thousands of fiction books, some more brilliantly written than others, but nothing in that spe…

> Many dictators have sounded good but their core messages were abhorrent. Abhorrent does not mean untrue. In fact some of the worst people use truth to evil ends.

Like who?

Re: Good Writing

#193

Post by NAHWheatCracker »

nssnsjsjsjs wrote: post #160
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…

What is wrong with having someone edit and review? It is just feedback. If the writing itself is an assignment editing is normal. If the writing is part of another process maybe not. For fly.io I can see the appeal of unedited content as it can be rougher (as in breaks style guides and whatnot) and I like that roughness in blogs. E.g. you might get a British idiom come through or a more conversational style.

Having an editor isn't wrong, but it's an luxury for something as small as a Hacker News comment or an email.

Paul having an editor isn't a luxury. His essays are edited because it's important for his business. He can easily justify a paying someone.

More to the point, we're contrasting Paul's essays to people who don't have the luxury. Paul's essays could be seen as less genuine, even if they seem wiser.

Re: Good Writing

#194

Post by [deleted] »

not_maz wrote: post #145
yojo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of a line by Douglas Adams describing some particularly crude alien invaders: “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.” He could have written something like: “The blocky ships hovered seemingly in defiance of gravity.” Instead he picked a phrasing that’s intentionally a little hard to parse, but the reader feels clever for taking the time to get the joke, and remembers it. Paul’s…

Paul’s style of removing all friction might help the concepts slide smoothly into one’s brain, but as antirez points out, they’re less likely to stick. That's fine. The ideas transmit, the words are forgotten. He doesn't need to use memorable sentences if he's saying what he's trying to say. Paul Graham is a very skilled communicator. He's not a writer's writer like YKW, but he doesn't need to be.

[deleted]

Re: Good Writing

#195

Post by andoando »

kurko wrote: post #189

> I think writing that sounds good is more likely to be right. Paul's point would make sense if his case was about greater verisimilitude, which might sound like splitting hairs, but is an important phenomenon in philosophy. Many dictators have sounded good but their core messages were abhorrent. In the same vein, there are thousands of fiction books, some more brilliantly written than others, but nothing in that spe…

Abhorrent doesnt mean the message was not conveyed well, which ultimately is the purpose of good writing

Re: Good Writing

#196

Post by basket_horse »

> It's hard to be right without sounding right.

This doesn't seem true in the age of LLMs, which are notorious for being confidently incorrect.

In fact, this whole article seems out of touch with the realities of where AI is going. In my opinion, good writing is dead. Or rather, good writing is commoditized. Good ideas are still very much alive, but if you have an idea and bad prose, iterating with an LLM will have a better end state than rereading your paragraph 50 times.

That said, if you're only writing to internalize your own ideas (journaling) then this makes more sense.

Re: Good Writing

#197

Post by machinelearning »

> “So here we have the most exciting kind of idea: one that seems both preposterous and true.”

Am I missing something or is the “seems true” part taking too many liberties here?

If anything, as described in the previous few sentences, the premise seems false, not true.

Kind of ironic since the line sounds right but isn’t rigorously right, so it undercuts the main argument.

Re: Good Writing

#198

Post by basket_horse »

chromatic wrote: post #125
tptacek wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

good editing often improves writing, and good writing often improves ideas

Re: Good Writing

#199

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

This is wrong in so many different ways it's like an art piece. Every part of it that tries to defend the central thesis is actually disproving it. It's kind of funny actually. Here's a dude that's been writing for 30 years, and not only is his writing bad, his ideas are crap. It has the feel of somebody who's completely convinced of his own ideas, despite the fact that they're based solely on his personal experience.

I have a simple proof that the thesis is wrong. Take a moron, and have him work on a farm for 30 years. Then have him write a book about running a farm. Now, he's going to sound like a moron, and will write very poorly. But most everything he writes will be right. Despite his bad writing, he can still communicate his observations of how and why simple things work. So it's not hard to be right while sounding wrong. You just have to be a moron.

Re: Good Writing

#200

Post by tptacek »

nssnsjsjsjs wrote: post #160
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…

What is wrong with having someone edit and review? It is just feedback. If the writing itself is an assignment editing is normal. If the writing is part of another process maybe not. For fly.io I can see the appeal of unedited content as it can be rougher (as in breaks style guides and whatnot) and I like that roughness in blogs. E.g. you might get a British idiom come through or a more conversational style.

Y'all, we definitely edit those posts. ;)
Post reply on HN