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Good Writing

paulgraham.com

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Re: Good Writing

#51

Post by tzury »

vzaliva wrote: post #39

The problem with successful tech figures is that, over time, they often become convinced they can succeed at anything. Musk is a glaring recent example - and now Paul. I do appreciate his essays on tech and related subjects, but not for their literary merit. If I’m seeking advice on writing, I’d turn to actual writers - people who’ve earned recognition and acclaim specifically for their work in that field.

Paul Graham doesn’t moon-light as a writer, rather, writing is one of the core skills that made YC what it is.

He spends months chiseling each essay because he understands that clear thinking is expressed through clear prose. Dismissing that craft because he also knows Lisp is like trashing Stephen King’s storytelling because he can ride a bike.

If you only grant “literary merit” to people who never shipped a line of code, your definition’s too narrow for the real world—where ideas, not résumés, decide who we read.

Re: Good Writing

#52

Post by oulipo »

vzaliva wrote: post #39

The problem with successful tech figures is that, over time, they often become convinced they can succeed at anything. Musk is a glaring recent example - and now Paul. I do appreciate his essays on tech and related subjects, but not for their literary merit. If I’m seeking advice on writing, I’d turn to actual writers - people who’ve earned recognition and acclaim specifically for their work in that field.

Paul Graham is spewing rightwing nonsense for a long time now

Re: Good Writing

#53

Post by tzury »

ISL wrote: post #47
vzaliva wrote: post #39

The problem with successful tech figures is that, over time, they often become convinced they can succeed at anything. Musk is a glaring recent example - and now Paul. I do appreciate his essays on tech and related subjects, but not for their literary merit. If I’m seeking advice on writing, I’d turn to actual writers - people who’ve earned recognition and acclaim specifically for their work in that field.

One can readily argue that Graham has earned recognition and acclaim specifically for his essays. They're part of what drew early founders to YC.

100%

Re: Good Writing

#54

Post by jmorf »

“It’s hard to be right without sounding right.”

No. It’s hard to sound right even when you are. And if you don’t, you might as well be wrong.

Re: Good Writing

#55

Post by raincole »

luispauloml wrote: post #21

There are two sentences in this essay that I couldn't understand. Can someone help me? 1. "An essay is a cleaned up train of thought, in the same way dialogue is cleaned up conversation" I thought dialogue and conversation were the same thing. What is the difference between them besides one being a cleaned up version of the other? 2. "If for some bizarre reason the number of jobs in a country were fixed, then immigra…

Conversation is when you talk to people in your daily life. Dialogue is something from books or movies.

Re: Good Writing

#56

Post by intermerda »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48
vzaliva wrote: post #39

The problem with successful tech figures is that, over time, they often become convinced they can succeed at anything. Musk is a glaring recent example - and now Paul. I do appreciate his essays on tech and related subjects, but not for their literary merit. If I’m seeking advice on writing, I’d turn to actual writers - people who’ve earned recognition and acclaim specifically for their work in that field.

I've commented many times before how I've become a bit disillusioned with pg's writing over the past decade or so, because it always seemed to lack anything beyond a surface level of introspection. He always seemed to be pushing the idea that qualities that make a person great at startups are the most important thing in the world - not surprising given his industry, but to me many of his essays just felt more and mor…

He is the quintessential tech bro. His selective caring about “free speech” only when it serves to feed into right wing outrage was when he showed his true colors years ago. The recent essay on “Wokeness” just confirmed it.

Re: Good Writing

#57

Post by robertpateii »

RandomLensman wrote: post #7

What how does that concept work in poetry or lyrics, for example? Something could be completely fictional (and artificial) and still be exceptionally well written.

Fiction still has ideas to get across and internal consistencies it needs to maintain to be enjoyable and get those ideas across.

When characters do things that beggars belief built upon their previous actions, it can ruin the whole story.

Even poetry has some truth and concept inside the poet to which it’s bound.

Re: Good Writing

#58

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #46
kazinator wrote: post #9

Wow, is this ever out of touch. People are currently confronting smoothly delivered, glib sentences that are wrong at an unprecedented scale due to widespread adoption of language model AI.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Good Writing

#59

Post by thundergolfer »

luispauloml wrote: post #21

There are two sentences in this essay that I couldn't understand. Can someone help me? 1. "An essay is a cleaned up train of thought, in the same way dialogue is cleaned up conversation" I thought dialogue and conversation were the same thing. What is the difference between them besides one being a cleaned up version of the other? 2. "If for some bizarre reason the number of jobs in a country were fixed, then immigra…

Dialogue and conversation are not the same thing, though they’re related, just in the same way that stress and anxiety are related but not the same. The task of reading comprehension involves being able to track important distinctions between synonyms.

The second is a counterfactual, and it is correctly deployed to help show the difference between a valid argument and a sound argument. Graham is saying that a good liar presents pleasing and valid but unsound arguments, or rather sophistry.

I think your confusion here is from reading comprehension problems.

Re: Good Writing

#60

Post by lumenwrites »

vzaliva wrote: post #39

The problem with successful tech figures is that, over time, they often become convinced they can succeed at anything. Musk is a glaring recent example - and now Paul. I do appreciate his essays on tech and related subjects, but not for their literary merit. If I’m seeking advice on writing, I’d turn to actual writers - people who’ve earned recognition and acclaim specifically for their work in that field.

I have learned about YCombinator, hacker news, Paul Graham, and startups in general through one of his essays. I was first blown away by the brilliance and clarity of his writing, and only then did I learn that he's a prominent tech figure.

So many years later, I still haven't read a better writer (except maybe Scott Alexander). So, at least from my perspective, if anyone has the authority to write about good writing, it's this guy.

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