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Write Like You Talk (2015)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#31

Post by paulpauper »

kaashif wrote: post #17
hinkley wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve outgrown a few bloggers. Spolsky still stings a bit. I really liked his early stuff and then my frowns got bigger and a lot more frequent. The problem I found with blogging is that I only have about two year’s of things to say, and either I start scraping the bottom of the barrel or I had to take a long break and then circle back, reiterating 80% of what I already said but with new or better examples. If I was f…

> If I was forced to have an audience for ten years I’d just be saying crazy shit all the time. There is an alternative. Just blog without an audience. Don't keep any web server logs (or don't look at them). Delete the analytics. The fact that someone theoretically could be reading my blog is enough motivation to write something understandable (rather than just scrawling some gibberish in a notebook), but whether tha…

There is an alternative. Just blog without an audience. Don't keep any web server logs (or don't look at them). Delete the analytics.

That depends on your individual preferences I guess. I think having an audience is at least an indication that you're succeeding at it. Otherwise you have a diary, not a blog.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#32

Post by rocketbop »

When I watch interviews of actors and other well known personalities in the 80s compared to now I can't help notice that the standard of spoken conversation seems to have dropped; lower vocabulary, shorter sentences, more interruptions.

I think it would do a lot of good for people to try to speak more like they write, rather than the other way around.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#33

Post by dasil003 »

This is an unconvincing straw man argument. Bad writing is just... bad writing. You can just as easily point to bad speaking and say people should talk more like they write. The fact is, speaking and writing are different, and even within them there are different goals and styles.

While PG's plain-spoken dialectical style attracted me early, and has been effective, I wouldn't call it the end-all-be-all approach to writing. One problem with keeping things conversational is that the substance of the argument can be obscured by flowing narrative that sounds good but doesn't necessarily add up. A dense, precise style might be harder to read—and less politically expedient—but ultimately more effective in establishing the merits of a novel idea.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#34

Post by jesuscript »

hinkley wrote: post #14
spacedcowboy wrote: post #2

I like a lot of what Graham writes, but I fundamentally disagree with him on this one. Spoken language is the JIT compiler of information transferral. It’s spur-of-the-moment; it’s stream-of-consciousness; it gets the job done by stripping away a lot of nuance and complexity. Written language is more subtle, more considered, more edited - he states himself that he writes then edits - in his case to make it more “spok…

I’ve outgrown a few bloggers. Spolsky still stings a bit. I really liked his early stuff and then my frowns got bigger and a lot more frequent. The problem I found with blogging is that I only have about two year’s of things to say, and either I start scraping the bottom of the barrel or I had to take a long break and then circle back, reiterating 80% of what I already said but with new or better examples. If I was f…

You are just circling the truth that ultimately we all really have one or two things to really say to the world. And that’s okay.

Refining the few themes that you have conviction for until the end of time is worthy. Hubris is if you think those few things now qualifies you for all things.

It helps if your topic of interest has endless fodder. Misanthropes know what I mean.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#35

Post by jimmySixDOF »

The old adage "sorry for the long letter I didn't have time to write a short one" has some relevance here if you approach it from the perspective of maximum efficiency and information density. But that is not always the best path to get your idea across. A conversational style presumes you have a longform narrative and the extra elbowroom for nuance and variations on a theme. I dictate a lot from inside a VR headset and I usually work backwards from the spoken paragraphs to an outline form I can then expand on at a later stage in an email for example. Just sending pages of raw transcript is not great if you respect your readers time.

As an aside, the best mix for me is doing Screen Recording walkthroughs of some topic which can communicate so much more info than a written description while keeping the conversation narrowly focused. Video platforms like Loom, mmhmm, yac, Tella, etc all these provide a better way to coordinate discussion when integrated with typical tools like email and thread messengers.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#37

Post by curo »

texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #4

> But perhaps worst of all, the complex sentences and fancy words give you, the writer, the false impression that you're saying more than you actually are. Disagree. When you're writing / reading, it's much easier to parse complex sentences. It's also much easier to express a cohesive, complex thought this way compared to a meandering, directionless sentence. And the whole point of "fancy words" are to succinctly con…

There is something exhausting about that example sentence.

Yes, different words embed different meanings. For instance, it's clear to me what Paul means by "fancy" and "complex." The author William Zinsser makes both points: choose great words and write like you speak.

But I agree that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, there's a time and place for the word 'mercurial.'

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#38

Post by bcantrill »

As with so many things Paul Graham: there is a good, important idea here (omit needless words!) but he overshoots the mark, descending into venomous overgeneralizations. The truth is more nuanced: speaking and writing are both important vectors for communication (obviously?), but they are different (delightfully so!) -- with different strengths and weaknesses. Great writing is tight: it crackles. If a word serves that end, it should be used -- knowing that if someone like Graham wants to decry the word choice as "fancy", it reveals more about the critic than the writing.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#39

Post by Cthulhu_ »

texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #4

> But perhaps worst of all, the complex sentences and fancy words give you, the writer, the false impression that you're saying more than you actually are. Disagree. When you're writing / reading, it's much easier to parse complex sentences. It's also much easier to express a cohesive, complex thought this way compared to a meandering, directionless sentence. And the whole point of "fancy words" are to succinctly con…

That's it, it'll depend entirely on the context. Maybe if you're selling something you should write like you talk, or if you're posting comments / opinions on an orange/brown/grey website, but if you're writing "A History of Ancient Britain", it's not exactly you'd talk to your friends about; it's a book, it's to educate and to entertain. Do you talk to your friends to educate and/or entertain? I mean the latter, sure, but people even change how they talk when they are entertaining someone else, so. idk.

Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)

#40

Post by tayo42 »

texaslonghorn5 wrote: post #4

> But perhaps worst of all, the complex sentences and fancy words give you, the writer, the false impression that you're saying more than you actually are. Disagree. When you're writing / reading, it's much easier to parse complex sentences. It's also much easier to express a cohesive, complex thought this way compared to a meandering, directionless sentence. And the whole point of "fancy words" are to succinctly con…

Fwiw Stephen King in "On Writing" also says to not use a thesaurus and just use the words you already naturally know how to use. He follows on saying your vocabulary will naturally expand as you read more.
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