Having your voice in writing is a difficult milestone.
Write Like You Talk (2015)
61–70 of 152 posts
Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)
#62I 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 don't see why what you're saying and what the blog post says are incompatible. I feel like Graham is not saying "simplify your thoughts," but rather "simplify your words." Think Up Goer 5 ( https://xkcd.com/1133/ ) but maybe not as extreme. What I understood from your comment is that for complex topics (like quantum mechanics), complex language is necessary. This section of the post clarifies Graham's thoughts on t…
> Think Up Goer 5 but maybe not as extreme.
I don't think this proves the point you want it to. Up Goer 5 loses a ton of information for the sake of its stylistic schtick, and is borderline incomprehensible to people who don't already know the information it's attempting to convey. That's not a problem when you're doing it for comedic effect or for its own sake; it's a big problem when you decide that a devotion to simplistic language should trump actual communication in scenarios where the message matters.
Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)
#63> 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.
I often use thesaurus to translate complex words into simpler ones, it really does improve the overall writing especially if you are biased towards redundant complexity ...
Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)
#64[deleted]
Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)
#65As 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 tha…
> venomous overgeneralizations Sorry, but this illustrates Graham's point even better than the "mercurial Spaniard" thing. Reaching for a fancy word that doesn't quite make sense in context. Overgeneralizations could be absurd. They could even be dangerous, perhaps - although Graham's alleged overgeneralization really doesn't seem to be, even if wrong. They're not venomous, at least not without an argument. You can't…
The venomous, dangerous, overgeneralized part is - I assume intentionally - snuck in under the radar. Did you follow the link on the word "bogus", and notice what keywords PG thinks are indicative of bogosity? A warning against overwrought language is one thing, but it's carried through to an attack on any complexity in written language (with no acknowledgement that sometimes that complexity is necessary or preferable except for nefarious reasons), and from there to an attack on the caricature of the liberal arts that STEM-lords love to mock without understanding. You start out nodding along to the idea that "mercurial Spaniard" is a bit much, and by the end you're nodding along to the idea that liberal-arts academia is a conspiracy.
Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)
#66I'm not going to write the same words that I would speak because my reader is not going to process those words in the same way that my listener would.
Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)
#67There is a good idea in here somewhere, but "write like you talk" is horrific advice that very few people should follow.
"Write casually for a wider audience" might work.
"Avoid complicated sentence structure and unusual vocabulary for a wider audience" might also be good advice.
People don't read in the same way they listen, so one should not write in the same way they speak.
Or, to put it another way, "Gosh, I dunno. Seems kinda like he didn't think that one through, you know? Maybe he knew what he meant, but what he said sure ain't it."
Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)
#68> 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…
> When you're writing / reading, it's much easier to parse complex sentences.
All other things being equal, I think this is only true because you can reread them at will and puzzle over them until you think you know what the author was trying to say.
Sometimes there's value in that. A good writer knows how to mix up the pacing of their prose, to organically guide the reader into engaging more fully with the parts that communicate complex ideas while the connective tissue disappears effortlessly into the background. But in the hands of a less skilled writer complex language is usually worse on balance: they don't understand that prose should always be economical, that less is almost always more, and many really do suffer from "the false impression that [they are] saying more than [they] actually are." Whether they're writing flowery romance fiction or technical manuals, they get high on their own supply without considering that writing is first and foremost a tool to convey meaning.
The "mercurial Spaniard" bit seems fine out of context. However, in context it had better be clear who that person actually is.
Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)
#69I 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 don't see why what you're saying and what the blog post says are incompatible. I feel like Graham is not saying "simplify your thoughts," but rather "simplify your words." Think Up Goer 5 ( https://xkcd.com/1133/ ) but maybe not as extreme. What I understood from your comment is that for complex topics (like quantum mechanics), complex language is necessary. This section of the post clarifies Graham's thoughts on t…
Up Goer 5 is a fantastic example of why complex language is necessary. Even in a short example, it already defines clumsy replacements for the words it's trying to use, like "Sky Bag Air" (Hydrogen), "Funny Voice Air" (Helium) and "Breathing Type Air" (Oxygen). Other artificially-simple language projects, like the Simple English Wikipedia* or Toki Pona generally end up in the same place. You get the linguistic equivalent of copy-and-paste coding.
Sure, "don't use more complex language than necessary" sounds like advice, but anyone capable of working out the minimally complex language needed for any given topic likely doesn't need to be told this.
*A quick skim also suggests that in many places, the SEW just gives up on simple vocabulary and uses phrases like "time-independent Schrödinger equation".
Re: Write Like You Talk (2015)
#70Anyone who has tried to dictate something instead of typing it knows how far off Graham is in this advice. Writing is a different medium than spoken language and reading is different than listening. Readers have different expectations than listeners. The cadence of sentence length is important, and the exact words you use count more. The pace of writing allows one to pick and choose more carefully - being more descriptive or precise as needed - and readers expect this.
He may have meant "conversationally," but that depends on context and your audience. This comment has a completely different tone than I would use in a professional document. Bad writing is bad writing, whether it's an academic paper, a blog post or a legal brief. It doesn't have anything to do with writing like you talk.
All that said, it is a good place to start writing, especially if you are having trouble organizing your thoughts or getting started. Imagine sitting in front of someone and explaining to them what it is you want to convey. Write that all down as if you're chatting. But then go back and edit. And that's a second good bit of advice: Writing is editing.