[HN Gopher] Write Simply
___________________________________________________________________
Write Simply
Author : razin
Score : 329 points
Date : 2021-03-11 11:58 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (paulgraham.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (paulgraham.com)
| keiferski wrote:
| Meh. Reducing language to a mere communication tool also destroys
| much of its beauty, meaning, and ability to inspire or motivate
| us. I don't think it's a coincidence that the loss of interest in
| poetry has coincided with a general loss of respect for literary
| culture.
|
| I had this impression recently while reading the _Akbarnama_ ,
| which is a sort of court-approved biography of the Mughal Emperor
| Akbar. It was written by his Grand Vizier, the top political
| advisor, who was also a poet and translator. Indeed it would
| almost be unheard of for a high governmental official to _not_ be
| deeply educated in aesthetic matters.
|
| In any case, what immediately struck me was how beautiful the
| writing itself was. A bit wordy, at times, but in no way simple.
| Just one line I wrote down from the introduction:
|
| _Without the help of Speech, the inner world 's capital could
| not be built, nor this evil outer world's civilization be
| conceived._
|
| When political leaders put together similar books today, they are
| inevitably written in the most simple, banal language possible in
| order to maximize "idea propagation" and book sales. History is
| all the worse for it.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbarnama
| john4532452 wrote:
| PG is writing to convey ideas not spread religon of peace . meh
| hrishi wrote:
| Agreed, but entirely dependent on context.
|
| Most writing on the web (including most of my work) is designed
| for reach, for all of the narcissistic reasons like retweets
| and shares, but also the reason that we live in a more
| democratic world today, and ideas that have more reach often
| have more impact.
|
| When you write, you want yourself to succeed through your
| writing, but to me it's far more important that my ideas
| succeed - that they find life in another mind.
|
| Early writing (especially from the era you mentioned, alongside
| the vedas and the upanishads before it) was poetic not only for
| the purpose of aesthetics, but also so that the work can self-
| select who can understand it. Interpreters and translators were
| common (and still are when concerning these and religious
| works), which concentrates power. If I need you to tell me what
| the mahabharata says, you have more power than if I could
| understand it myself.
|
| Overall, pulling to either extreme - simplicity or purple prose
| - is not recommended, but I think everyday writing (especially
| policy) should be clearer and not cleverer.
| keiferski wrote:
| The funny thing is that Akbar himself was actually
| illiterate. He had everything read to him.
|
| Otherwise, sure, I agree. I'd just say that the beauty of
| democratization and widespread literacy is that we all have
| access to the high culture of the past.
| yesenadam wrote:
| I can't get over that your comment starts with "Meh." - which
| seems to go against everything it goes on to say.
| cranekam wrote:
| Most complicated writing of the kind PG is complaining about
| isn't beautiful, though. It's verbose and clumsy and full of
| less good replacements for common words, like "purchase"
| instead of "buy", "utilize" instead of "use" and so on. Or it
| has flowery phrases that add nothing. A recent example is
| Github's recent blog post about a security vulnerability they
| fixed [0]. Its opening paragraph:
|
| "On the evening of March 8, we invalidated all authenticated
| sessions on GitHub.com created prior to 12:03 UTC on March 8
| out of an abundance of caution to protect users from an
| extremely rare, but potentially serious, security vulnerability
| affecting a very small number of GitHub.com sessions."
|
| "out of an abundance of caution" adds nothing other than the
| faint smell of a desperate attempt to reassure the reader. The
| sentence would read much better without it.
|
| I'm all for rich language where it's useful or appropriate (a
| novel, etc) but in most cases I just want to know what's up.
|
| [0] https://github.blog/2021-03-08-github-security-update-a-
| bug-...
| mcguire wrote:
| PG is complaining about most complicated writing, which is
| not beautiful. It uses too many words and the wrong words,
| like "purchase" instead of "buy" and "utilize" instead of
| "use". It has complex phrases that add nothing. Github's blog
| post about fixing a security weakness [0] is a recent
| example:
|
| "On the evening of March 8, we invalidated all authenticated
| sessions on GitHub.com created prior to 12:03 UTC on March 8
| out of an abundance of caution to protect users from an
| extremely rare, but potentially serious, security
| vulnerability affecting a very small number of GitHub.com
| sessions."
|
| "Out of an abundance of caution" adds only the smell of a
| desperate attempt to reassure the reader. The sentence would
| be much better without it.
|
| I like rich language where it is useful or fitting but,
| usually, I only want to know what the writer is
| communicating.
|
| _Hmm. You may be right._
| swyx wrote:
| can you learn to use > when quoting? its hard to read what
| you are saying vs what you are responding to.
|
| like this:
|
| > Hmm. You may be right.
|
| thats all i ask
| lovecg wrote:
| I think it does add information. "Out of an abundance of
| caution" is a stock phrase that means "we don't think this is
| currently a problem but it's a prudent thing to do". Without
| it, the statement is open to interpretation: were any users
| actually affected?
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| Then say that. Use two paragraphs if you have to.
| billfruit wrote:
| I remember that sort of confounding beaureucratic usage of
| English being referred to as 'Mandarin' English.
| zdragnar wrote:
| That is interesting, because it implies exactly the
| opposite of what it seems to.
|
| Mandarin was the official language of the government, and
| so all regional and local bureaucracies, during the days of
| dynasties in China. Although it may sound foreign to locals
| in various provinces, it guaranteed that every part of the
| government had a common understanding.
|
| Quite the opposite of fluff for fluff's sake.
| dreamer7 wrote:
| I was hoping you would share your simplified version of the
| GitHub quote. So let me attempt it instead -
|
| "On the evening of March 8, we logged out all users from
| GitHub.com who had logged in prior to 12:03 UTC on March 8.
| This was done to protect users from an extremely rare, but
| potentially serious, security vulnerability affecting a very
| small number of GitHub.com sessions. No user accounts were
| affected"
|
| I really couldn't simplify much without losing information.
| Logging out users isn't the same as invalidation of
| authenticated sessions because this probably revoked access
| to bots / API calls etc.
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| _Email from security@github.com, sent on March 9th_
|
| Last night, we logged out your Github account to fix a
| security flaw. Your account was not breached. You can read
| more details here [1].
|
| [1] https://github.blog/2021-03-08-github-security-update-
| a-bug-...
| [deleted]
| jasonhoch wrote:
| Another comment mentioned that using a word with multiple
| meanings increases confusion.
|
| I would argue that "writing" can mean "writing the tool" as
| well as "writing the art form." PG is talking about "writing
| the tool."
|
| Confusingly, both the tool and the art form can convey ideas.
|
| Certain ideas can be conveyed better by art ("a picture is
| worth a thousand words"). Visual art is typically more
| accessible than complex prose, but all forms of art can reach
| levels of inaccessibility that are frustrating to those not "in
| the know."
| danenania wrote:
| Even for poetic or literary writing, a baseline of simple
| language will tend to make it stronger. "Fancy" language is
| best used sparingly to add emphasis and emotion. Reaching for
| the 5 dollar word or complex sentence structure every time is
| the mark of an amateur. There are some masters who can make it
| work, but that's yet another "know the rules so you can break
| them" type of deal.
| dartharva wrote:
| Early and classic literature was meant solely for the elites,
| so it featured flamboyant writing styles. Current literature is
| meant for everyone, and so it focuses on efficiency and
| effectiveness of communicating the intended idea as
| unambiguously as possible.
|
| "Beauty" and "inspiration" are subjective and vary with
| personal preferences. I find simple and concise language much
| more elegant than the verbose "literary" styles of the past.
| asdffdsa wrote:
| "[I]t focuses on efficiency and effectiveness of
| communicating the intended idea as unambiguously".
|
| Is this true? Since the 20th century, there's been a marked
| subset of literature dedicated toward ambiguity, absurdism,
| and surrealism brought on by the idea of the subconscious,
| the theory of relativity, WWII.
|
| In fact, most of these titles arguably don't even have an
| "intended idea" to impart. E.g. T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland",
| Joyce's "Ulysses", Camus's "The Stranger" to name a couple
| off the top of my head.
|
| "'Beauty and 'inspiration' are subjective...I find
| simple...language much more elegant than...'literary' styles
| of the past" Sure, in your subjective opinion you think older
| literature is not as pleasing to read, but these works
| objectively changed the use of the English language: that's
| why they are regarded as literature.
|
| Canonical literature changed not only the way future authors
| wrote, but also how future generations behold and conceive
| existence. Both the ideas, and the way they are expressed are
| the source of many derivative bodies of text including your
| and my own comments.
|
| Modern works that repackage these ideas, styles, and
| archetypes in a more diluted way to satisfy one's personal
| taste and level of reading comprehension does not qualify
| them to be more "literary" than the original works which
| created those artifacts. In this sense, the idea of
| literature and the value of those works is well defined. To
| reduce literature as merely "verbose" and to quote the word
| as if it is illegitimate and lacking consensus is highly
| ignorant and, given the lack of substantive evidence or
| original arguments supporting it, completely asinine.
| keiferski wrote:
| > Early and classic literature was meant solely for the
| elites, so it featured flamboyant writing styles
|
| That actually isn't universally true. For example, most
| people today probably consider Shakespeare's writing style to
| be "flamboyant" yet his audience was a wide swath of the
| public. The difference today is that we are post-Moderns and
| so we have inherited the Modernist rejection of the Victorian
| era and its excessive tendencies.
|
| Akbar was also a contemporary of Shakespeare, interestingly
| enough.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| He's being passive aggressive. Orwell had a particular
| problem with political speech when he gave his rules on
| writing simply and clearly.
|
| Don't speak clearly or concisely or with prose or with
| poetry, if you lack conviction. Who the fuck are you talking
| to, take your stand. The world is not your school.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Lan.
| ..
|
| But hey, if he meant 'this ones for the kids', make it clear
| by writing simply.
|
| All forms of expression tread on fraud if you lack
| conviction, and you will have to hide in airy fortifications
| of ['that's not what I meant', 'I was misinterpreted', 'You
| only think I meant this', 'Your are the problem'].
|
| Well I'm sorry, I was just trying to figure out what you
| _simply_ meant to say.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| There's a difference in writing, like there's a difference in
| painting. Painting a house is different from painting the Mona
| Lisa. Writing a work instruction or standard operating
| procedure is different from writing a poem and both are
| different from writing pop fiction or non-fiction. You can
| optimize for _meaning_ , optimize for _beauty_ , or you can
| optimize for _inspiration_ , but it's hard to get all of them,
| and this is not a skill that is easy to get.
|
| PG does not really explore that (natch), but that's a point to
| consider, nonetheless.
| keiferski wrote:
| I took the objective of the essay to be "communicating
| ideas."
|
| There is certainly no reason why one can't write well _and_
| communicate their ideas at the same time. In fact, I 'd argue
| that well-written ideas spread more quickly. Things like _The
| Bible_ or _The Qur 'an_ would likely be far less influential
| if they were poorly written.
| CaptArmchair wrote:
| This is what PG states:
|
| > It's too much to hope that writing could ever be pure
| ideas. You might not even want it to be. But for most
| writers, most of the time, that's the goal to aim for. The
| gap between most writing and pure ideas is not filled with
| poetry.
|
| I think that's virtually meaningless unless you define what
| is meant by "an idea". The Bible, Qu'ran, the story of
| Gilgamesh, Homer's Illias,... are all ideas, just the same
| as famous essays by Hemingway or Benjamin Franklin. Even
| Proust's In Search of Lost Time with it's epic long
| sentences is a multitude of ideas regarding involuntary
| memory, separation anxiety and much more.
|
| Everything PG writes after that hinges on a single
| imperative: That if you intend for your writing to be read,
| you must write simple.
|
| The trouble is that his argument doesn't challenge that.
| There's no reflection on the fact that this is by far an
| universal principle, or that it, paradoxically, defines the
| relationship with the reader as if the latter always wants
| simple, digestible reading at every turn.
|
| Hemingway is famous for his terse and simple writing,
| attributed to his schooling as a journalist. But he also
| had a critics who simply despised his literary writing for
| its terse and uncompromising style. And then there's
| William Faulkner who had this baroque style with long,
| endless sentences which dug their heels into Big Emotions,
| trying to convey them in the most sinuous way possible.
| Faulkner, just like Hemingway having won the Nobel Prize,
| found himself the butt of criticism on his writing as well.
|
| Sure, these musings pertain to great literators. PG's point
| could be relegated to articles and essays instead. Or,
| unspoken yet more to the point, writing as this ephemeral,
| intangible idea that disolves and dissappear like vapor
| clouds the second it is published in the digital realm.
| Unlike words which are printed in respectable paper
| journals and glossy magazines.
|
| No, the writing style of PG's essay was also part of this
| expose. Leveraged by the author to drive a point home. I'm
| still not sure what that point was exactly. PG being PG,
| chances are he just wanted nothing more then to make a so-
| called thought-provoking statement. In that regard, simple
| writing doesn't automatically make for good writing. The
| idea, the essence, you're trying to sell still needs to be
| solid and worth telling. That's where PG's essay,
| ironically, falls flat.
|
| PG's essay doesn't spark a debate because he writes about
| an idea, it sparks discussion because of quite the
| opposite: writing about anything except about writing or
| why one writes. Now, one can fault PG for not providing
| context, but as with anything in this digital world, PG
| publishes on his own websites and assumes that the reader
| had written his other writings as well to understand what
| he's trying to get at. That's fine. It just doesn't make
| for compelling reading if one has to pieces together.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Reducing language to a mere communication tool also destroys
| much of its beauty, meaning, and ability to inspire or motivate
| us. I don't think it's a coincidence that the loss of interest
| in poetry has coincided with a general loss of respect for
| literary culture.
|
| That's not the argument here. This talks about language and
| writing as a means of communicating ideas to as broad an
| audience as possible. There is still a place for dense, poetic,
| or ambiguous language full of jargon and metaphor and all that
| good stuff. For example, physicists will communicate amongst
| themselves in a very inaccessible language of physics because
| they need precise language in that setting. But a physicists
| who wants to communicate his ideas to the public, he will
| simplify it to to make it accessible.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| There's two things wrong with this. First taking as self-
| evident the notion that plain or simple language is
| necessarily more effective in communicating ideas to a broad
| audience. That's very questionable. Effective orators don't
| just communicate simply to 'move ideas around', they also
| inspire and connect emotionally with their audience, just
| think of any well-regarded and successful politician.
|
| Secondly implicit in that argument is the notion that
| ordinary people can only comprehend 'simple speech' and have
| no appreciation for form or aesthetics, which is pretty
| arrogant but par for the course for your average PG essay and
| captures perfectly the stereotypical software developer
| developer mindset of completely lacking appreciation for
| style and thinking one's own ideas are so brilliant they have
| to be dumbed down for everyone else.
| chartpath wrote:
| Love pg but lol at opening with "I write simple" and immediately
| throwing around some Italian words.
| [deleted]
| bigpumpkin wrote:
| "The gap between most writing and pure ideas is not filled with
| poetry." - Paul Graham
|
| "I dwell in Possibility -
|
| A fairer House than Prose -
|
| More numerous of Windows -
|
| Superior - for Doors -
|
| Of Chambers as the Cedars -
|
| Impregnable of eye -
|
| And for an everlasting Roof
|
| The Gambrels of the Sky -
|
| Of Visitors - the fairest -
|
| For Occupation - This -
|
| The spreading wide my narrow Hands
|
| To gather Paradise -"
|
| Emily Dickenson
| voidhorse wrote:
| "Easy reading is damn hard writing." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne
| (apparently)*
|
| There's definite value to simplicity in writing. At the same
| time, like all principles, people tend to run with the idea and
| misapply it. There are some cases in which your work demands a
| certain level of precision that's only possible using complex
| words or jargon. Not to mention, writing that's a little
| complicated can be a lot more fun! There are several novelists,
| essayists, and poets who are a joy to read not because they
| express their ideas as clearly and simply as possible, but
| because they manage linguistic acrobatics that make us realize
| there are ways to use language we never thought possible--often
| it takes some extra work to understand such output.
|
| *: Have never taken the time to verify this myself.
| screye wrote:
| The quote is apparently attributable to "Thomas Hood"[1]
|
| [1]https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/05/hard-writing/
| [deleted]
| johnyzee wrote:
| > "Easy reading is damn hard writing."
|
| Reminds me of Mark Twain: _" I didn't have time to write a
| short letter, so I wrote a long one."_
| dang wrote:
| Not Twain, Pascal:
| http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| hourislate wrote:
| Reading that paragraph, 20-30 percent could be removed.
|
| Reading for pleasure should be entertaining. Reading for
| knowledge should be simple/concise.
| munificent wrote:
| The most successful (by that I mean, placed the greatest
| number of ideas in the greatest number of brains) informative
| writing I've seen is a pleasure to read as well. Humans are
| capable of deriving multiple rewards from something at the
| same time. People who fetishize simplicity would take Carl
| Sagan's:
|
| _Look again at that dot. That 's here. That's home. That's
| us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you
| ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out
| their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering,
| thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic
| doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward,
| every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and
| peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father,
| hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of
| morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every
| "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of
| our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a
| sunbeam._
|
| And replace it with:
|
| _The Earth contains all humans and is far from Voyager I._
| hanniabu wrote:
| > Reading for knowledge should be simple/concise
|
| It can be a difficult balance. You can provide a lot of
| information in a few bullet points, but there may also be a
| lot of contextual information left out that leaves more
| curious readers wondering "why is like this and not another
| way".
| drewcoo wrote:
| Writing should have goals and reach them.
|
| There is plenty of writing not meant to entertain or convey
| knowledge.
| kemiller2002 wrote:
| I believe the best piece of advice is, "Know your audience."
| xbar wrote:
| I believe this is a piece of the best advice: 1. Who is your
| audience? 2. What do you want to tell them? 3. What do you
| want them to do?
|
| These are the Three Questions.
|
| My advice: answer them before you create a powerpoint, an
| email, an essay, a policy. They create a sharp tool for
| thought.
| tartoran wrote:
| Yes. And for wanting to expand that audience simpler writing
| is an advantage IMO
| pjettter wrote:
| I thought that piece was actually hard to read. Roughly the same
| size paragraphs, and many. No headings. Only simple words.
| Unsuitable to scanning back and forth. It forced me to read it
| and then I got bored.
| [deleted]
| u678u wrote:
| I agree, but it seems success is highly correlated with ability
| to bullsh*t. From school essays all the way to CEOs. If you can
| bluff your way with long stories, spew buzzwords continual
| assertions, and talk louder than everyone you seem to win.
| ConnieDee wrote:
| Aha - permission to write some incomplete sentences. Thanks!
| blueyes wrote:
| PG is making some assumptions about who will read and benefit
| from this essay, and secondarily, who will read and benefit from
| the writings of his readers.
|
| The assumptions aren't wrong, they're just not explicit. Because
| he is not stating them overtly, he's getting criticized for not
| writing like Nabokov or the grand vizier of an emperor.
|
| Most of us will never be Nabokov, or the emperor's vizier. But we
| will write things for other people that they will need to
| understand and act on, and those are the people PG is writing
| for.
|
| An equally good way to state his point would be to echo Feynman:
| if you can't write it simply, you probably don't understand it.
| So it's good advice for anyone beginning to write something new,
| and it's good advice for anyone new to writing.
|
| Write simply first, if you can. And above all, write in a style
| that your audience can absorb.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > An equally good way to state his point would be to echo
| Feynman: if you can't write it simply, you probably don't
| understand it.
|
| Probably applies to writing programs too.
| serverholic wrote:
| Also, we should give authors the benefit of the doubt. If an
| opinion is not broadly applicable then we shouldn't jump to
| conclusions and assume that was the authors intent.
| throwawaygh wrote:
| _> If an opinion is not broadly applicable then we shouldn 't
| jump to conclusions and assume that was the authors intent._
|
| Graham states in this essay that his goal is: "ideas leap
| into your head and you barely notice the words that got them
| there".
|
| Given that this is the goal of his writing style, it's not at
| all surprising that his readers often jump to ("incorrect")
| conclusions barely noticing what got them there.
|
| Most of the comments critiquing this essay can be boiled down
| to an obvious but important observation: simplicity requires
| either eliding necessary nuance or hiding complexity. The
| goal is usually the latter, but hiding complexity in this way
| requires a shared context.
|
| Take a running program and strip it from its context (state).
| Then, drop the program into a new context. The meaning of the
| program can change drastically. Hell, it might not even type
| check anymore. The program text is the same but the meaning
| is different, and all that changed was the context. The only
| way to avoid this is to muddle up the program text with
| assertions on the context that ensure this "drop into new
| context" operation can't change the meaning of the program
| too much.
|
| So too with writing. Specifying context decreases the amount
| of shared context required to avoid miscommunication, but
| also results in less simple writing.
| serverholic wrote:
| I don't think it's just Graham though. I see this kind of
| thing in every comment section on hacker news. That would
| indicate to me the the cause is something different than
| this particular writing style.
|
| People here LOVE to take statements and search for contexts
| where the statement doesn't work, then act like that was
| what the author was arguing.
| davidivadavid wrote:
| Then I would say that this essay fails on its own standard,
| because what it argues for is clarity, not simplicity.
|
| I'm sure Paul Graham thinks himself a clear writer, which he
| tends to be. Now try running "On Lisp" through an app like
| Hemingway, that will "simplify" the language. I'm almost
| certain the result will be _less_ clear than the original, even
| though it 'll be arguably simpler. Is that really what writers
| should aim for?
| nindalf wrote:
| I think we all know that we _should_ write simply, but not always
| what needs to be simplified in something we 've written. I find
| http://hemingwayapp.com to be useful here. I don't listen to all
| recommendations, but it helps me fix some mistakes I make often -
| using passive voice, unnecessary hedging etc.
| p0nce wrote:
| I feel the same about that article as with the book Rework,
| everything is interesting and insightful but to keep the writing
| simple, what is said had to be molded into simple messages ; with
| a probably slightly different meaning. It seems such text work
| better with a technical readership.
|
| EDIT: but in all honesty, my most read texts online are where I
| managed to remove as much words as possible.
| addsimm wrote:
| This advice: to write "simply", like much writing advice offered
| by people who have not studied communication, is pathetic.
|
| Why? Because it offers nothing concrete that can help a given
| piece of writing or your writing in general.
|
| To illustrate, consider comparing pieces of writing:
|
| A caveat: its hard to set up a worthwhile comparison in the
| absence of context, meaning external information that pinpoints
| the points of comparisons. To keep this short, I'll propose and
| discuss two common comparisons that writers and readers make.
| Feel free to challenge these instances:
|
| 1. Grading tests.
|
| The purpose of grades is exactly to offer a reductionist
| evaluation that explicitly identifies the "better" answer. Please
| agree that grading becomes more difficult as one moves from true
| false, to multiple choice through short answer and finally to
| essay exams. Taken to the extreme, awarding a Pulitzer prize is a
| form of grading.
|
| Under conventional definitions of simple, as one moves toward
| that extreme, isn't it difficult to justify ever calling the
| simpler answer better?
|
| To me, the limiting case of this claim cribs from Occam's razor.
| The exact same answer, is better, if its shorter. Again to me,
| this is a difficult case to make, and ultimately is question
| begging, because it assumes the grader knows two answers are the
| same. (Notably to this hacker news community, there is a special
| case covering whether shorter code performing the same task is
| better.)
|
| Being more sympathetic to the advice giver (and in line with
| other comments), the advice really concerns clarity, conciseness,
| coherence or something similar. It is not controversial to say
| that, all else equal, the answer possessing this quality is
| better. (Does this claim require the sameness stipulation? It
| would makes discussions of that quality more interesting.)
|
| Thus, the advice is either wrong or mislabeled.
|
| 2. Revising writing.
|
| Whether stated or not, revision is the signal target of all
| writing advice. To use the same framework, the author has two
| pieces, the current piece and a future piece. Of course, the
| author wants to make the future piece "better"
|
| Leaving the point about clarity and its cousins aside, there are
| obvious cases where simpler is better. For example, the exact
| same piece is better absent extraneous material. Put another way,
| cutting the material only improves the piece if it is extraneous.
| You can see where this leads: more empty advice.
|
| The bottom line here is that simple is underspecified. It has no
| value without a much, and probably impossible to formulate,
| stronger definition of simple.
|
| So, trying to be constructive, what would, concretely, improve a
| given piece or your writing in general? Try this:
|
| Instead of editing down a given piece - trying to make it simpler
| - write two pieces for the same context, maximizing the
| differences between each. This takes time, but it is a much
| better exercise, especially for the beginner, than going back and
| forth with the same piece.
|
| I guarantee that having two pieces (not paragraphs, sentences,
| words or other subsets of the piece) will lead to a much better
| final piece, even novel, than having one piece and real or
| potential variants.
|
| Next, and this is the best "piece" of advice, I have: have others
| read your work - as many as you can, and discuss it with them as
| much as possible.
|
| TLDR Good writing takes work and conscious practice
| EGreg wrote:
| Does pg recycle his themes? I have seen this one a number of
| times over the years, and others as well.
|
| I guess everyone does that, to some extent, but this is literally
| the entire content of his piece. Hasn't he written something like
| that before? Why does he repeat himself every few years almost
| verbatim?
| paulpauper wrote:
| Paul having success by writing simply does not prove that simple
| writing is the key to successful writing. There are tons of other
| factors that make writing successful, such as the popularity and
| name recognition of the writer. I have found that writing tips
| ever seem to work as well for the recipient as whoever is giving
| the tips.
| grawprog wrote:
| When i was in school, our technical writing teacher constantly
| drilled in one key concept:
|
| 'Get to the point.'
|
| As in, be concise, be clear, don't use more words than necessary
| and make your writing as simple to understand as possible.
|
| Most writing exists to try and communicate an idea. The words
| used should be chosen to make that idea as clear as possible with
| the least amount of effort. (Apart from abstract poetry and such
| I suppose.)
| ConnieDee wrote:
| Aha! Permission to include incomplete, albeit clear, sentences.
| Thanks!
| varjag wrote:
| It's Arc but for prose.
| interleave wrote:
| I remember seeing the replay of PG writing an essay[^1] back in
| 2009. To me, this was such a strong way to show (rather than
| tell) just _how_ hard writing really is.
|
| [^1] Here's the current link if you're interested so watch:
| http://byronm.com/13sentences.html (Thankfully re-discovered from
| one of PGs recent tweets:
| https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1365425470318272514)
| lawwantsin17 wrote:
| Why does anyone listen to this half rate essayist anymore? He's
| just looking for attention.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > "Most readers' energy tends to flag part way through an article
| or essay."
|
| > "When you write in a fancy way to impress people, you're making
| them do extra work just so you can seem cool."
|
| > "So you can't assume that writing about a difficult topic means
| you can safely use difficult words."
|
| I can't understand why someone writing about writing simply is
| using a word like "flag" that is completely jarring and never
| used colloquially. While you can sort of surmise what it means
| from the context, I still had to look up the definition to
| confirm. And if it might be meant as a way to naturally teach
| someone the word, why is that lesson buried in an essay about
| writing simply? I guess I'll chalk it up to him not realizing how
| obtuse that word is, couldn't think of anything simpler like
| "wane", "fall", or "recede", and didn't want to change up the
| structure of that sentence.
|
| I just can't imagine how that irony got past any editor.
| [deleted]
| Tycho wrote:
| This reminds me of an interview with Ernest Hemingway who
| mentions how he was influenced by great artists who were not
| writers, for instance, Cezanne, and (I think) Mozart, and others.
| When the interviewer pushes for more detail, he elaborates
| briefly on one example and then, tantalizingly, says the other
| examples are too obvious to explain. Always wondered about what
| he had in mind.
| mountain_peak wrote:
| That interview with George Plimpton (I think) is great, but
| Hemingway does eventually go into a bit more detail when
| pressed. My interpretation is that he admires people who have a
| deep well of talent and knowledge and use that to push art and
| science in a new direction. Bill Watterson is an excellent
| classical painter and painted the Creation of Adam on his dorm
| room ceiling, and although Calvin and Hobbes doesn't look like
| Michelangelo, that painting and experience is "in" his comics.
| Dali, Cezanne, and Mozart could have easily mimed past art and
| music, but they saw beyond what was done before to push in new
| directions. For his part, Hemingway goes on to explain that (to
| him) writing is like an iceberg - 7/8 of it is experience and
| knowledge hidden from the reader - they only see the part
| sticking above the water.
| Tycho wrote:
| I hadn't thought about it from that perspective. Funny thing
| that occurred to me about the famous iceberg principle is
| that Hemingway had a large unpublished/abandoned volume of
| writing on Nick Adams, the fictional hero of many of his
| short stories. So in a sense the Nick Adams his readers knew,
| was only exposed as a fraction of the character's full
| existence, so to speak. I can imagine a writer taking it
| further and creating an entire fictional town, writing many
| histories but not publishing them, but using the town as a
| setting for published works.
|
| But back to the interview comment. I was thinking more
| literally, eg. when Cezanne does a painting of a landscape
| and/or some people, what details does he choose to actually
| paint? How _many_ details does he include? Knowing that the
| viewer will recognize things from their broad outline. And
| with Mozart, well, I suppose there 's things like how long
| should a piece last, what sort of rhythmic patterns are
| pleasing to audiences. Or, if you think of melodies as
| 'characters', how many different developments should they go
| through before recapitulating to their core.
| mountain_peak wrote:
| Yes - I certainly didn't want to impart 'the obvious' in my
| response, but I'm not sure if there's an answer to your
| more literal question. If there was, we would have read an
| HN post on how there's a great new AI that develops
| compelling literary works, art, and music based on
| analyzing past masters and current psyche. Of course, there
| are AI writing, painting, and music composition systems,
| but other than seemingly random chance, they have yet to
| produce something compelling (novel, yes).
|
| I do believe many great artists had a certain degree of
| mental affliction - not so much to incapacitate, but to
| provide additional insight. For example, it's been said
| that Ravel's Bolero was written in the early throes of his
| mental affliction, hence the repetitive theme. I completely
| agree with you - compositions (classical and modern)
| ultimately take us on small adventures from one place to
| another and back - happiness, despair, melancholy, and so
| on. As you mention, the melodies are the main 'characters'
| in the story, supported by chord sequences, rhythmic
| patterns, ostinato, and so on, all perversely using our
| ancient and deep auditory instincts of baby wails, hurt
| fellow tribe members, dangerous animals, thunder, laughter,
| etc. against us to elicit an emotional response. A great
| song creates a personal story in the listener's mind based
| on past experiences. Great painters and authors strive for
| the same response, but I think it's a more difficult task;
| for some reason we're more susceptible to auditory emotions
| vs. visual or the written word. Of course, soundtrack
| composers combine the visual with auditory very
| effectively; the whole being more than the sum of
| individual parts.
|
| As for creating an entire world on which to base novels and
| characters on, Hemingway does touch on this as well,
| stating roughly that he could have made The Old Man and the
| Sea 1,000 pages with every detail exposed and examined (and
| that approach has successfully been used before), but it
| was much more compelling (and difficult) for him to
| eliminate all unnecessary things and have the town exist
| under the waterline as internal experience and just let the
| novel show whats important, which connects the reader with
| the story, as they have to fill in the details with their
| own experiences and ideas as opposed to Hemingway's.
| skrebbel wrote:
| A related paper is the delightfully titled "Consequences of
| erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: problems
| with using long words needlessly"[0]. It won the 2006 Ig Nobel
| Prize in Literature but it could've won the Economy one just as
| well in my opinion.
|
| [0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/acp.1178
| abnry wrote:
| The most important rule of writing is to know your audience.
| Every other rule follows from that one.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| As usual, xkcd is relevant: https://xkcd.com/547/
| jfk13 wrote:
| So is Calvin and Hobbes, kinda...
| https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/02/11
| sjg007 wrote:
| The really good writers can hold multiple ideas in juxtaposition
| and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions.
| jxramos wrote:
| """ As Kevin Williamson observed, Sowell is "that rarest of
| things among serious academics: plainspoken." From 1991 until
| 2016, his nationally syndicated column set the bar for clear
| writing, though the topics he covered were often complex. "Too
| many academics write as if plain English is beneath their
| dignity," Sowell once said, "and some seem to regard logic as an
| unconstitutional infringement of their freedom of speech." If
| academics birth needlessly complex prose, editors too often
| midwife it. An editor, Sowell once quipped, would probably have
| changed Shakespeare's "To be or not to be, that is the question"
| to something awful, like "The issue is one of existence versus
| non-existence." """
|
| https://www.city-journal.org/thomas-sowell-race-poverty-cult...
| thanhhaimai wrote:
| Am I the only one not very fond of this style of writing? It's
| the constant pauses and hiccups that I'm reading. Four paragraphs
| into it, and I still don't get a lot of information about what
| the author is trying to convey.
|
| In good essays, the first and last sentence in a paragraph are
| often enough to summarize the points. It helps set the context,
| and makes it much easier for the reader to make a mental map of
| the overall idea. In this article, its "hiccup" style of writing
| makes it much harder to build a mental map. You can't predict
| where it will go until you fully read the sentence.
|
| I usually enjoy reading most of PG essays. For this one, I don't
| enjoy reading it, and I stopped reading after paragraph 4.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I normally have a very hard time reading his essays.
| ozim wrote:
| I have to agree there was something off with the tempo of this
| essay. There were too many too short paragraphs.
| czierleyn wrote:
| I think simplicity is overrated and often an excuse for dullness.
| nicholast wrote:
| Taken to the extreme this advice leads to collections like
| Randall Munroe's Thing Explainer or Dr Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham.
| prionassembly wrote:
| I feel personally attacked.
| davidivadavid wrote:
| Seems like this whole essay argues for _clarity_ rather than
| _simplicity_ -- probably a better goal to aim for, too.
|
| He opposes simple to "fancy", but the opposite of simple isn't
| just "fancy", that's, well, a simplification. The opposite of
| "simple" writing may be: "rich" writing, "complex" writing, none
| of which are particularly problematic for Graham's goal provided
| that they're paired with enough clarity.
|
| That "simple" writing lasts longer is disproved by many works of
| literature that have made their way to us through history, most
| of which, by the standard of this essay, could be considered
| complex.
|
| As someone with a modicum of experience in the philosophy of
| language, I must also say that I do not look kindly on people who
| take for granted that there even could be such a thing as a
| thought without language, a "pure idea", since for all we know
| such a thing has never been observed.
| haswell wrote:
| > _That "simple" writing lasts longer is disproved by many
| works of literature that have made their way to us through
| history, most of which, by the standard of this essay, could be
| considered complex._
|
| - Would that literature have been considered complex at the
| time it was written? How much of that perceived complexity is
| due to changing writing styles, education standards, etc?
|
| - Writing a book and writing a proposal for the next
| project/product have entirely different definitions of
| "lasting". Context matters greatly.
|
| > _As someone with a modicum of experience in the philosophy of
| language, I must also say that I do not look kindly on people
| who take for granted that there even could be such a thing as a
| thought without language, a "pure idea", since for all we know
| such a thing has never been observed._
|
| This sentence is a good example of the kind of unnecessary
| complexity described by the essay. You seem to be saying that
| "pure ideas are not possible without language", but that's not
| clear in your writing. If your intent it to exclude people who
| do _not_ have a "modicum of experience in the philosophy of
| language", I have to ask: why?
| davidivadavid wrote:
| > - Would that literature have been considered complex at the
| time it was written? How much of that perceived complexity is
| due to changing writing styles, education standards, etc?
|
| Great question, can't say I'm able to answer it
| authoritatively. I would guess most works of literature,
| essays and speeches, even at the time they were produced,
| tend to be a fair bit more complex than what the average
| person is used to. Especially if they come from eras with
| lower literacy.
|
| > - Writing a book and writing a proposal for the next
| project/product have entirely different definitions of
| "lasting". Context matters greatly.
|
| It certainly does.
|
| > This sentence is a good example of the kind of unnecessary
| complexity described by the essay.
|
| It's a pretty simple sentence. What's tripping you up?
|
| > You seem to be saying that "pure ideas are not possible
| without language", but that's not clear in your writing.
|
| No. I'm saying that thinking "pure ideas devoid of any
| language" is a naive concept to anyone who's researched that
| topic a minimal amount. I wasn't flexing.
|
| > If your intent it to exclude people who do not have a
| "modicum of experience in the philosophy of language", I have
| to ask: why?
|
| That's not my intent at all. I'm providing context to my
| judgment. If that was my intent, I would have said: "If you
| don't have experience in the philosophy of language, don't
| write about this topic." Good thing is -- I'm not a Nazi, so
| I tend not to do that kind of stuff.
| raspasov wrote:
| To check if a written sentence is truly simple, just ask
| yourself:
|
| "How would it sound if somebody spoke it out loud?"
|
| I've found that to be a very accurate way to check sentences for
| too much fluff.
|
| Complex sentences just sound "off" when spoken.
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| Writing simply is certainly a great skill. It's like playing
| simply. You should be able to play an instrument without any
| vibrato or improvisation.
|
| But that doesn't imply you always have to write simply. To often
| I've had friends who declare that writing in school is dumb and
| that we should always write simple and short. What's implicit in
| their view is that the text is not important, simply the message.
| The text should be merely a vehicle to convey the message.
|
| I'd counter that the text is not extricable from the message. The
| form and style of the text colors the message and provides a
| signal of whom the author is speaking to and with what tone. I
| read a James Baldwin novel and I have the feeling of someone
| preaching to me with fervor and ferocity. I read a Paul Graham
| essay and I have the feeling of a drily funny, at times arrogant
| lecture. Like it or not, PG has a style that is his brand. It's a
| good brand, but to claim that it's purely simplicity is
| presumptuous.
| mattowen_uk wrote:
| Whereas I have no opinion about PGs style of writing, I do
| however wish he'd push out that table width from 435 to something
| between 700-800, for readability.
|
| Sometimes, it's not _just_ about the words, but the layout also.
| gz5 wrote:
| ymmv but the best advice i ever got in this area:
|
| 'write like you are speaking'
|
| depending on my purpose and audience, i will write the first
| draft and then deliver it verbally. at least for me, and i do
| tend to use far too many words in the first draft, that exercise
| leads to a much clearer second draft.
| teodorlu wrote:
| If this essay resonates with you, consider looking into
| plainenglish.co.uk.
|
| Here's a place to start:
| http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/punctuating-sentences.html
| aabhay wrote:
| I think there are two sources of confirmation bias here:
|
| 1. People on HN are already primed to appreciate this style of
| writing. Simple. Precise. Direct. It suits a technical literal
| mind to have less ambiguity and fewer flourishes.
|
| 2. On the web, where each individual piece of writing is not
| meant to last as long, the writing style has become more casual.
| Consider the difference between your average Medium article
| versus your average academic research paper.
|
| Both of these points considered, I disagree entirely with the
| premise. There can be value to dense, even perhaps enigmatic
| writing. I would say that the greatest works of English
| literature tend towards that direction (James Joyce, Thomas
| Pynchon, David Foster Wallace).
| borepop wrote:
| >People on HN are already primed to appreciate this style of
| writing.
|
| My perception is the reverse. Probably 60% of the articles
| linked on this site, day in and day out, are a thicket of
| impenetrable jargon. Endless blog posts that make no attempt to
| explain to the non-initiated what the various acronyms mean or
| why the concepts might matter for a person who is not deeply,
| deeply immersed in whatever technical field the author is
| writing about. I wish more people who write about coding/tech
| would realize that a larger audience is interested in what is
| going on, but that the communication of the concepts needs to
| be approachable. This is not just a shortcoming of this field,
| obviously, as people in all sorts of technical/specialized
| fields tend to write the same way, speaking only to the in-
| crowd.
| serverholic wrote:
| Ah the old nerd trick of disregarding the context of a
| statement and applying it to a context where it clearly doesn't
| work.
|
| Do you really think Paul Graham is arguing against James Joyce
| style writing? Why would you think that?
| davidivadavid wrote:
| Because James Joyce's style isn't "simple" by any stretch of
| the imagination, I would guess? And the essay presents its
| position as a general statement void of all context. What
| context are we supposed to assume here?
| lelanthran wrote:
| > And the essay presents its position as a general
| statement void of all context.
|
| Are you sure? From the blog (first sentence):
|
| > I try to write using ordinary words and simple sentences.
|
| Since the "I" in this case refers to someone who does not
| write poetry, speculative fiction, drama, tragedies,
| comedies ... and only ever writes for a technical audience,
| the context is clear: technical[1] audience not seeking
| poetry, fiction, drama, etc...
|
| Further one he says:
|
| > So you can't assume that writing about a difficult topic
| means you can safely use difficult words.
|
| Once again, that indicates to me he is talking about
| writing something technical[2], not prose or poetry.
|
| [1][2] "Technical" is not limited to IT and engineering;
| it's about anything that involves technique. Describing
| dance moves is "technical", as is writing a recipe (which
| is very similar in technique to writing a tiny program) or
| anything involving writing down music (Should you use 7/4
| for the first verse, or alternate between 3/4 and 4/4?
| Which will be clearer to the flautist?)
| davidivadavid wrote:
| I don't think Paul Graham writes for a "technical"
| audience only and am fairly certain he would dispute that
| claim.
|
| I'm also fairly certain that the type of writing he's
| talking about is mostly non-fiction prose, such as the
| essays he writes himself (even though he doesn't state
| that explicitly). Would you consider those "technical"
| writing?
| yt-sdb wrote:
| The title of the essay is "Write Simply." Furthermore,
| the second sentence is more general than the first:
|
| > That kind of writing is easier to read, and the easier
| something is to read, the more deeply readers will engage
| with it.
|
| That is a general claim. I agree that it is often good
| advice, but there are caveats which Graham does not
| provide.
| serverholic wrote:
| Everything has context. Paul Graham is a leader in the
| startup scene so more than likely he's talking about the
| types text relevant to startups. Blog posts, press
| releases, etc.
|
| Again, why the fuck would you assume Paul Graham is talking
| about James Joyce?
| throwawaygh wrote:
| I do not have much of an opinion on the underlying debate
| happening here^1, but I will disagree with this comment.
|
| I do not believe that the article's prescription is
| confined to business writing.
|
| _> Paul Graham is a leader in the startup scene_
|
| That is true. But Graham is also a self-described
| essayist. He was writing long before he started Y
| Combinator, and his essays often discuss writing as a
| thing unto itself. For example, his "Nerds" essay
| mentions that one of his goals for life in high school
| was to write well^2.
|
| Given that Graham is deeply interested in writing, and
| that the article doesn't explicitly confine itself to
| business writing, I think it's quite a stretch to assume
| that this essay is only talking about business writing.
|
| _> Again, why the fuck would you assume Paul Graham is
| talking about James Joyce?_
|
| This is a strawman (and also unnecessarily combative).
|
| --
|
| [^1]: Well, see my top-level comment. But that's not
| really relevant to this comment.
|
| [^2]: "There was something else I wanted more: to be
| smart. Not simply to do well in school, though that
| counted for something, but to design beautiful rockets,
| or to write well, or to understand how to program
| computers. In general, to make great things."
| http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
| davidivadavid wrote:
| If "more than likely" he's talking about "the types of
| text relevant to startups" then surely that would be
| stated in an essay tooting the virtues of "simple."
| However, that doesn't appear to be the case.
|
| It seems more like Paul Graham might be talking about the
| kind of writing he does himself. Like essays. However,
| even in such a case, his point is debatable. Which is
| what people are doing here -- debating.
|
| No one is assuming he's "talking about James Joyce." You
| must be confused. He's talking about a certain type of
| writing style and making contestable generalizations
| about it. People are illustrating the contestable points
| with examples.
| jamesrcole wrote:
| I think the essay is clearly about _non-fiction_ writing.
| It's arguing about how best to communicate _ideas_ (he
| uses the term 'ideas' several times).
|
| Sure, fiction can be trying to communicate things, and
| sometimes even ideas, but to me it's pretty obvious that
| the essay isn't trying to give advice for fiction writing
| in general.
| davidivadavid wrote:
| It's pretty obvious to me too. That's not the point.
|
| The essay makes a generic statement about the superiority
| of a particular, although loosely defined, writing style.
|
| People debate the edge cases of that statement, showing
| its limits, and pointing to counter examples.
|
| The result is that the content of the essay is reduced to
| a very banal statement of the type: "All other things
| being equal, prefer writing something simple rather than
| not simple." As an aesthetic preference, it's all well
| and good. As a persuasive argument, rather lacking. It
| "tries to prove too much."
| jamesrcole wrote:
| The other person (at the top of this sub-thread) did say
| "Both of these points considered, I disagree entirely
| with the premise. There can be value to dense, even
| perhaps enigmatic writing. I would say that the greatest
| works of English literature tend towards that direction
| (James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace)." I
| would not consider these edge cases, because I don't
| think literature is relevant to the essay and its
| purposes.
| davidivadavid wrote:
| If you want to restrict Graham's argument to non-fiction,
| I'll happily grant you that.
|
| But let me give you a bit more context:
|
| As a Frenchman, when I think "Essay", my mind almost
| automatically reaches for two authors: Montaigne and
| Pascal (e.g. in his _Pensees_ ).
|
| "Simple" is probably the last qualifier I would use to
| describe their works. They're not simple. They're
| complex, rich, beautiful, copiously quoting from
| classical authors _and yet_ often crystal clear. They
| have the same quality poetry has where replacing a word
| by another damages the precision of the message and
| images conveyed.
|
| That is also true of non-fiction prose in longer form. I
| shudder to think what could become of Tocqueville's
| writing style, a peculiar mix of classical and romantic,
| if it were translated into "simple" language.
| serverholic wrote:
| You directly reference James Joyce
| dang wrote:
| > Again, why the fuck would you
|
| Please drop swipes like that from your arguments here,
| and generally please don't escalate hostility even when
| someone is wrong or you feel they are. Your comment would
| be fine without that last sentence.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Edit: as for "Try to not be autistic for a second" - we
| ban accounts that do that. Please review the guidelines
| and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart,
| so we won't have to ban you.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Well okay, who is he addressing? That's pretty much the only
| question I had reading it. Surely it isn't the modern blogger
| or clickbait 'journalists', since _they_ know what they are
| doing and _we_ know what they are doing.
|
| It's possible he simply said nothing.
| geofft wrote:
| It reads very much like it's a response to this not-even-
| particularly-upvoted comment on his last essay,
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26377185 " _Why does
| he write like an SAT reading comprehension passage_ "
|
| Kind of incredible.
| serverholic wrote:
| Try to not be autistic for a second. Paul Graham is in the
| tech scene. PERHAPS he's talking about things like coding
| tutorials, technical blogs, press releases, documentaiton,
| etc.
|
| I'd argue that simple writing is great in that domain.
| dang wrote:
| > Try to not be autistic for a second.
|
| Whoa, you can't do that here--that's bannable territory.
| Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26428045.
|
| (Also, please don't be snarky and please don't use
| allcaps for emphasis. Your "PERHAPS" breaks both of those
| guidelines in one go.)
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Lol you think he's critiquing press releases and
| documentation? Let's be friends, you're particularly my
| kind of dumb.
| khimaros wrote:
| "Be kind. Don't be snarky."
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dang wrote:
| You've also crossed into bannable territory. That's not
| cool, regardless of how bad another comment is. Please
| review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| and stick to the rules when posting here (all of them,
| please--you broke several).
| runevault wrote:
| Agreed. Simple writing is perfectly valid in the right time and
| place. Rich, dense writing also has a place and value. The real
| answer is understand what type of writing serves your intent
| and write with deliberate intent towards that style for that
| impact.
| leemcalilly wrote:
| Exactly.
| jamesrcole wrote:
| > I think there are two sources of confirmation bias here:
|
| [...]
|
| _2. On the web, where each individual piece of writing is not
| meant to last as long, the writing style has become more
| casual. Consider the difference between your average Medium
| article versus your average academic research paper._
|
| Did you see what he wrote in the essay, regarding this:
|
| > _Simple writing also lasts better. People reading your stuff
| in the future will be in much the same position as people from
| other countries reading it today. The culture and the language
| will have changed. It 's not vain to care about that, any more
| than it's vain for a woodworker to build a chair to last.
|
| Indeed, lasting is not merely an accidental quality of chairs,
| or writing. It's a sign you did a good job._
|
| > _I disagree entirely with the premise. There can be value to
| dense, even perhaps enigmatic writing. I would say that the
| greatest works of English literature tend towards that
| direction (James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace)._
|
| It seems pretty clear to me that the essay is about non-fiction
| writing, not fiction. All the arguments in it apply to non-
| fiction writing.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Yeah but the genre seems to matter.
|
| Fiction and poetry vs whatever type of writing blogging is.
| hc-taway wrote:
| > Fiction and poetry vs whatever type of writing blogging is.
|
| Essayists, pamphleteers, and diarists (blogs), and aphorists
| (Twitter). Genres with centuries-long histories.
| ozim wrote:
| I also will defend PG point.
|
| Most of us are not creating greatest works of English
| literature and me or many others are not James Joyce neither
| David Foster Wallace.
|
| If you are writing some greatest work of literature please use
| all the tools that language gives you.
|
| But for clear communication use simple language, please.
| jamesrcole wrote:
| > _On the web, where each individual piece of writing is not
| meant to last as long, the writing style has become more
| casual. Consider the difference between your average Medium
| article versus your average academic research paper._
|
| I would argue that academic writing tends to be pretty poor.
| hc-taway wrote:
| > I would argue that academic writing tends to be pretty
| poor.
|
| The above-namedropped David Foster Wallace certainly thought
| so.
|
| Among people who spend their days thinking about language I'm
| pretty sure academese is considered more of an elaborate,
| extended shibboleth than an effective communication tool,
| going beyond merely being sprinkled with jargon and fake-
| fancy cliches (like, say, business language) so that it
| serves as an effective gatekeeping tool. Hard(er than it
| needs to be) to read, hard to correctly write.
| leemcalilly wrote:
| Ok, so what makes James Joyce a good writer?
| raspasov wrote:
| How do you define "greatest"?
| andrepd wrote:
| I think the point is that one should use a direct and clear
| style of writing _where the objective is to convey a clear
| message_. Examples include technical papers or journalism. Of
| course, literature is not included.
| davidivadavid wrote:
| Direct and clear doesn't always mean simple.
|
| That's the main shortcoming of this essay. It doesn't define
| what it means by "simple". "If you want to be clear, write
| clearly" is a bromide, not an essay.
| jamesrcole wrote:
| The essay is titled "Write Simply". It's about _why_ you
| should try to write simply, rather than being a how-to. I
| think that 's reasonable. It may be very difficult to
| precisely define what "simple" means, and it may not be
| that necessary: it's just telling people why (he thinks)
| they should aim for simplicity. Most people can make a
| conscious choice about how simple or complex their writing
| is - and this essay is advice about which direction to go
| in.
| whorleater wrote:
| seems like he's arguing that the pinnacle of communication is the
| API spec
| calebm wrote:
| "Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do." :)
| jjice wrote:
| Simple writing definitely has its place along side more complex
| writing. It depends on the goal for sure. Writing to an audience
| to convey an idea. Maybe simple is better. Writing a document for
| the sales team of your product? Probably want to make it simple
| and leave out complexities.
|
| I do however understand some of the comments saying that complex
| writing can be more artful. A good analogy, symbolism, or
| metaphor can go a long way to driving home a point in a more
| elegant way.
| tartoran wrote:
| A metaphor could be worth one thousand words but it's not the
| case that simple writing can't use metaphors, just less fancy
| words, less ornament, less bombastic, etc
| artembugara wrote:
| I recommend everyone to use the Hemingway Editor to keep track of
| how easy it is to read your texts: https://hemingwayapp.com/
|
| Especially, if you're a tech writer.
|
| Explaining complex things in a simple way is what you should aim
| for.
|
| My #1 rule in writing: "if you can remove this word, and the
| reader can still understand what you mean then do so"
| mobb_solo wrote:
| I always felt that much of Kurt Vonnegut's charm was due to the
| simplicity. If that ties in with what you were saying.
|
| Of course that doesn't imply the images and ideas are simple.
|
| Similarly, I always thought Tom Robbins tried too hard to be
| simple and sci-fi.
|
| A poor man's Vonnegut, and a Lazy man's Pynchon..heh..
| frogpelt wrote:
| When I was in college, an English professor shared this statement
| commonly attributed to Mark Twain, "I have made this longer than
| usual because I have not had time to make it shorter."
|
| It was actually Blaise Pascal who said it. But the point is, that
| clear writing means removing lots of fluff.
| hnarn wrote:
| Reminds me of the Swedish journalist Sigge Agren who received
| multiple awards for his work in forming a style in Swedish
| journalism, he's well known for the quote "Write concisely.
| Preferably, not at all".
|
| Both the technical field and the academic field (especially the
| humanities) are plagued with the notion that a complex and
| therefore "valuable" idea also needs to be expressed in complex
| terms to be considered valuable. Personally I believe that
| there's insecurity at the core of this, writers are afraid to
| mention things that are obvious to some readers, or afraid to use
| language that is considered too "simple" for the context (the
| efficiency of the message is not considered at all).
|
| When it comes to technical writing at least, nothing could be
| further from the truth. I think anyone who writes for a living
| has a responsibility to not waste the reader's time, and "get on
| with it" so to speak. Focus on what's important and drop the
| rest. Almost any sentence can be made 10% shorter, which seems
| insignificant until you've made the entire text 10% shorter
| without losing any important messaging.
| keiferski wrote:
| _The whale has no voice; unless you insult him by saying, that
| when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through his nose. But
| then again, what has the whale to say? Seldom have I known any
| profound being that had anything to say to this world, unless
| forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living. Oh!
| happy that the world is such an excellent listener!_
|
| - Moby Dick
| boatsie wrote:
| I think this is an extension of pg's advice he gives to YC
| startups when they describe themselves. For those who have looked
| a website or sat through a pitch deck and wondered what the hell
| the company actually does, this advice is crucial. I don't
| believe he is talking about fictional literary works, but rather
| language for communications.
|
| YC was probably the first proponent of the X for Y type of
| startup descriptions, because the analogies are simple and give
| you a starting point to begin understanding.
| [deleted]
| shalmanese wrote:
| This could have been an email.
| srcreigh wrote:
| The idea of "trying" to write is in the last two of PG's essays.
|
| I would just like to reveal that the word "essay" comes from
| French verb "essayer" which means "to try".
|
| This makes the phrase "trying to write an essay" somewhat
| tautological doesn't it?
|
| I'm curious whether PG knows this little fact.
|
| If language is like a 6th sense into a shared platonic realm of
| ideas, it wouldn't be unsurprising that PG is able to survey the
| concept of "essays" accurately without knowing its etymology.
| randomsearch wrote:
| So confused why anyone would assume PG is talking about writing
| fiction or poetry. It's an essay by an essayist on writing
| essays.
| throwawaygh wrote:
| This "simple" style of writing demands a lot of the reader's
| and writer's shared context. Even in this comment section you
| can find two different commenters _defending the essay_ but
| making different assumptions about what sort of writing PG is
| discussing! You assume essays, and another commenter assumes
| business writing. I happen to think you 're both wrong, and
| that Graham's "Write Simply" prescription is meant to apply to
| much more than just business writing and essays (perhaps even
| all writing, but at least most writing).
|
| Three people who know a fair amount about the author -- at
| least relatively speaking -- can't agree on the meaning of this
| essay.
|
| Now, consider that some other people reading this essay might
| be genuinely confused about why we're discussing Parental
| Guidance.
| randomsearch wrote:
| Do you think he is saying Shakespeare or Wordsworth or any
| great novelist should have written in this style?
| throwawaygh wrote:
| I think he is talking about a lot more than essays and
| business writing. Beyond that, I can't say much. I do not
| know Paul Graham and haven't even read all of his essays.
| There are certainly people who don't like Shakespeare's
| style. I don't know if Graham is one of those people.
|
| He could have written a slightly clunkier essay that
| allowed me to understand with greater detail the entire
| collection of types of writing that he is discussing. He
| didn't want to write that essay, which is of course fine.
|
| To be clear, I'm not "for" or "against" any writing style
| for the same reason that I don't get into religious wars
| about programming languages. I think this is a good essay
| with some solid advice for many different types of writers.
| But it's also, ironically, an essay that can be used to
| demonstrate why one might sometimes choose to write a bit
| less simply. Or, to write simply (plain words and simple
| sentences) but without trying to "jump into the reader's
| brain without them noticing".
|
| It's really the combination of "Write Simply" and
| "saltintesta" that I think deserved at least a bit of a
| "well, sure, but realize this approach can be a footgun".
| kashyapc wrote:
| This boring imperative falls into the same trap as "Be Clear".
|
| Gregory Williams, author of the classic _" Towards Clarity and
| Style"_, has a thoughtful rebuttal to these punchlines in his
| book's description (quoting an older edition):
|
| _This is a book about writing clearly. I wish it could be short
| and simple like some others more widely known, but I want to do
| more than just urge writers to "Omit Needless Words" or "Be
| clear." Telling me to "Be clear" is like telling me to "Hit the
| ball squarely." I know that. What I don't know is how to do it.
| To explain how to write clearly, I have to go beyond platitudes._
|
| _But I want to do more than just help you write clearly. I also
| want you to understand this matter to understand why some prose
| seems clear, other prose not, and why two readers might disagree
| about it; why a passive verb can be a better choice than an
| active verb; why so many truisms about style are either
| incomplete or wrong. More important, I want that understanding to
| consist not of anecdotal bits and pieces, but of a coherent
| system of principles more useful than "Write short sentences."_
| * * *
|
| For non-fiction writing, I also vigorously recommend _" Clear and
| Simple as the Truth"_ by Thomas and Turner[1]. It has fantastic
| practical advice; the entire second half of the book is _filled_
| with concrete examples--both "the exquisite and the execrable".
|
| [1] https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9445.html
| davidedicillo wrote:
| Oh the irony of using an Italian word to describe his goal to
| write simply. Italian is way more verbose than English.
| jeremy_wiebe wrote:
| This feels closely related Plain Language [1]. An editor I worked
| with pointed me to this concept. We were writing documentation
| for a framework my company was building.
|
| [1] https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/
| divbzero wrote:
| The UK government has similar guidelines for writing plain
| English. [1]
|
| [1]: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/content-design/writing-for-
| gov-u...
| cambalache wrote:
| > And remember, if you're writing in English, that a lot of your
| readers won't be native English speakers. Their understanding of
| ideas may be way ahead of their understanding of English.
|
| Ah, condescension. The secret ingredient for a fantastic essay.
| jasonhoch wrote:
| I agree with the thesis, but a voice in the back of my head was
| whispering "Newspeak..."[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
| gadders wrote:
| I mean his writing is understandable, but it's not good writing.
| To this native English speaker, the sentences are a bit "Janet &
| John" - very short, very few compound versions. It's fine for his
| purpose, or in say a manual for a microwave.
|
| You can compare this with the writing of Patio11, which often
| seems to be the opposite extreme - chains of double negatives,
| obscure words etc etc.
| atleta wrote:
| Depends on the purpose, I guess. If the point is just to convey
| information, ideas, then yes, write simply. If the purpose is to,
| at least in part, to entertain, then don't.
|
| Thinking about the entertainment perspective and e.g. the
| journalists and bloggers I like, I think it's pretty similar to
| how we perceive music. I remember a paper from quite a few years
| ago that found (through fMRI) that we most enjoy music that our
| brain can mostly predict, but sometimes it would mispredict/would
| be wrong about the next few notes that follow. It's a balance.
|
| Non trivial writing must be similar. I.e. it may not be about
| music, but entertainment: it should be somewhat in line with what
| you expect but at the same time throw challenges at you. It
| should make you work at an enjoyable level.
|
| What he says about ageing, OTOH, is probably pretty universal.
| There is some debate in my country (Hungary) about the literature
| curriculum in elementary and high schools. Traditionally children
| are supposed to read XIX and early XX century novels from some of
| our great writers. This hasn't changed since I went to school
| decades ago. I remember _hating_ these. Most of them were very
| hard to follow, very hard to decipher the story from the complex
| text. I guess what happened is that what they were writing was
| challenging to the level of being entertaining to their
| contemporaries (just like it is with today 's writers, of course)
| but then the change in the language made it too challenging for
| most of us (at least the young, untrained minds).
| HPsquared wrote:
| Convoluted prose is the natural language equivalent of spaghetti
| code.
| villasv wrote:
| Pinker wrote a whole book about this, much better written, in
| fact. Unlike an HN essayist, Pinker also is an actual wide-
| audience best-seller. And unlike this essay, Pinker correctly
| acknowledges many nuances.
| randomsearch wrote:
| A book is longer than an essay, therefore more nuances can
| potentially be captured?
| [deleted]
| foobarbecue wrote:
| tldr
| williesleg wrote:
| Just write like a needful.
|
| Hit all the keywords, make it look like you know even though you
| don't
|
| Don't make any sense, that'll make them read it all.
| frankohn wrote:
| There was an excellent citation:
|
| "I apologize, I wrote you a long letter because I didn't have the
| time to write you a shorter one."
| macspoofing wrote:
| Great article.
|
| There are people who want to communicate ideas to as wide an
| audience as possible. Those people will instinctively use speech
| and writing in a way that is most accessible.
|
| There are people who want to intimidate, or impress. Those people
| will hide behind jargon and lingo.
| jlangemeier wrote:
| Counterpoint; writing simply isn't useful in all cases,
| communicating simply is telling a first grade student that
| multiplication is repeated addition, yes it works in most day to
| day examples, but it breaks down when you start looking closely -
| how do you add something to itself zero time?
|
| Communicating simply can leave vague generalities to a technical
| conversation or decision making process that allows for those
| involved to make the wrong assumptions; but if you take the time
| to give precision to the process you can remove those assumptions
| without harming the overall communication. One doesn't need to go
| in depth about how a decision tree works or a random forest works
| to explain the pros and cons of the process, and the assumptions
| made to get the results.
|
| Writing simply in all cases is the equivalent of "when you have a
| hammer, everything looks like a nail," writing precisely is using
| a screwdriver when you're working with screws and a hammer with
| nails. Use the right tool for the job, sometimes simple isn't
| correct, and sometimes precision isn't either (elementary school
| algebra vs algebraic theory).
| mcguire wrote:
| " _When you write in a fancy way to impress people..._ "
|
| Is that the _only_ reason to write in sentences of 10 words or
| more?
| judofyr wrote:
| I think this article ends up giving excellent examples for why
| you _shouldn 't_ just "write simply". There is basically no
| argumentation happening here and most statements are just thrown
| out as truths. Yes, it might be quick and easy to read through,
| but it's not very good writing.
|
| Examples:
|
| > Plus it's more considerate to write simply. When you write in a
| fancy way to impress people, you're making them do extra work
| just so you can seem cool. It's like trailing a long train behind
| you that readers have to carry.
|
| Notice how he's arguing against "write in a fancy way to impress
| people" and not "write in a fancy way". Most authors write in a
| "fancy" way to invoke a _feeling_ in the reader. They don 't add
| random words to "seem cool". Is spending a few more words to get
| the reader into a happy/sad mood "inconsiderate"? That's an
| interesting discussion, but in his quest to "write simply" he's
| just skipped right by it.
|
| > It's too much to hope that writing could ever be pure ideas.
| You might not even want it to be. But for most writers, most of
| the time, that's the goal to aim for. The gap between most
| writing and pure ideas is not filled with poetry.
|
| What is evening happening in this paragraph? First he's
| questioning whether it's possible for "writing to ever be pure
| ideas" without explaining what that's even supposed to mean. Then
| he says that most people aim for that. And somehow the solution
| is "not filled with poetry". I don't understand a thing of this.
| He's implying so much without explaining anything.
| epr wrote:
| (you) > There is basically no argumentation happening here and
| most statements are just thrown out as truths. Yes, it might be
| quick and easy to read through, but it's not very good writing.
|
| After reading this I would expect a solid argument from you
| that "it's not very good writing" because "There is basically
| no argumentation happening" and "most statements are just
| thrown out as truths".
|
| (you) > Notice how he's arguing against
|
| So... is argumentation happening or not?
|
| (pg) > When you write in a fancy way to impress people, you're
| making them do extra work just so you can seem cool.
|
| (you) > Notice how he's arguing against "write in a fancy way
| to impress people" and not "write in a fancy way".
|
| He is definitely taking for granted here that everyone who is
| writing in a "fancy way" is doing so to impress people. At the
| very least, he seems to be suggesting that this is often the
| case. There is no question whatsoever though, that this is
| happening at least some of the time.
|
| (you) > Most authors write in a "fancy" way to invoke a feeling
| in the reader. They don't add random words to "seem cool"
|
| "Most"? According to what? Do you have anything more to support
| this assertion than he had to support his? Are you really in a
| position to be critiquing him about this?
|
| (pg) > It's too much to hope that writing could ever be pure
| ideas. You might not even want it to be. But for most writers,
| most of the time, that's the goal to aim for. The gap between
| most writing and pure ideas is not filled with poetry.
|
| (you) > What is evening happening in this paragraph? First he's
| questioning whether it's possible for "writing to ever be pure
| ideas" without explaining what that's even supposed to mean.
|
| There's a fair amount of implicit logic here, but i'd say the
| general idea is something along the lines of: -
| The purpose of writing (for "most writers, most of the time")
| is to communicate ideas. - Care ought to be taken in
| preventing the medium (text) from inhibiting this
| communication. - Simple writing can be understood by a
| more broad audience - Therefore, simple writing will help
| these writers towards their end of communicating these ideas to
| a broader audience
|
| (you) > Then he says that most people aim for that.
|
| No, he said "for most writers, most of the time, that's the
| goal to aim for". He is saying that they ought to be aiming for
| that. If they already were doing so, then it would go without
| saying.
|
| (you) > And somehow the solution is "not filled with poetry"
|
| Again, I think you are misunderstanding what he is trying to
| say. Building on my previous explanation, I'd say he is
| contrasting his ideal of simple writing with poetry, which is
| often cryptic.
|
| Circling back to my initial statement, I'd suggest you worry
| about your own arguments before criticizing those of others.
| auggierose wrote:
| Of course you should write simply. But of course, the context
| matters. For example, when writing mathematical texts, somehow
| being able to convey pure ideas is the ideal. Poetry is not
| needed in that context, it is confusing, as the beauty is in
| the ideas conveyed, not in the words used to convey it. In such
| a context, for example using the expression "vector space"
| counts as writing simply, while in a general context it does
| not.
| randomsearch wrote:
| Wow I'm amazed that you don't have the same interpretation to
| me here.
|
| Perhaps the first difference between us is I immediately
| assumed PG is talking about transmitting ideas (argumentation
| or proposition), ie writing essays and not writing fiction.
|
| What I assume he means about "writing not being pure ideas", he
| means there's an overhead in transmitting ideas via writing.
| This is analogous to using programming languages to capture
| ideas, hence anything but simplicity offends because it is
| analogous to (in)elegance in code.
|
| I think this essay is excellent but it seems I was more attuned
| to his message, or at least it met my expectations.
| IneffablePigeon wrote:
| Ironically, as far as I'm concerned, excellent poetry _is_
| about as close as writing gets to "pure ideas" (or at the
| very least pure emotion). Average poetry, maybe not so much.
|
| I think, as usual, there's a lot of nuance here. I think
| emotion is inextricably linked to almost all forms of
| communication, and that there's not such a bright line
| between fiction and non fiction in that regard.
|
| The books that have taught me the most are not necessarily
| the ones with the most information density or even the most
| clarity of thought (although both help). The ones that have
| really conveyed their points effectively to me have all had
| an element of weaving them into a narrative that I could
| engage with, examine from different angles, absorb and
| remember.
|
| But I'm also pretty sympathetic to the idea of cutting fluff
| at all opportunities and getting to the root of what you want
| to say - that's the one thing that's improved my writing the
| most.
| BossingAround wrote:
| > Ironically, as far as I'm concerned, excellent poetry
| _is_ about as close as writing gets to "pure ideas" (or at
| the very least pure emotion).
|
| Depends on the time period. I wouldn't exactly say that T.
| S. Eliot's poetry was about pure idea (or pure emotion). He
| did revel a lot in the fact that he was very educated and
| the readers are probably less so. Still a canonical author
| though.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| PG tends to write in a, "take it or leave it" style, you get
| used to it. He's never, to my eyes, seemed interested in
| convincing you via flashy argument, he'd rather spend the extra
| time conveying what he's experienced a bit more, and let you
| decide if it's worth caring about.
|
| For me, I try to remember that a lot of what he's saying may
| pattern match to an arrogant heuristic, but that's just because
| 99 out of 100 people who strike that tone are blowhards. He is
| the 100th person, and there's a lot to be gained if I set aside
| my own ego and just try to understand what he's describing.
| diego wrote:
| The main issue with the article is the imperative title. It's
| not "here's why I like to write in this style." It's telling
| the reader to write that way. Sorry but no, I won't write the
| way you do because you tell me to.
|
| edit: the point of my comment is not that _I_ won 't write
| that way. It's that the author is talking about his own
| preferences, but the title makes it sound prescriptive. In a
| way it illustrates the opposite point. Opinions are nuanced,
| and a two-word title written in the imperative doesn't convey
| the nuance of what the author is trying to say.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Surely you can work through that and pick out the parts you
| find useful/interesting, no? Or are you saying the
| assertive voice makes that harder?
| askafriend wrote:
| The commenter is not saying the writing has no value.
| They're saying that the main issue is the prescriptive
| title.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| This is weirdly sensitive. Like the guy who sees guitar
| lessons advertised on the bulletin board and gets mad
| because he doesn't _want_ guitar lessons.
| diego wrote:
| No, that's not the point. I'm not talking about _me_
| specifically, I'm talking about how the article has a
| prescriptive title. It implies that everyone should write
| this way. In reality it's about the author's preferences.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| If the blog post is about programming and it adopts a
| didactic style, i.e., telling the reader what to do, and it
| is obviously based on personal preferences -- either the
| author's or someone else's -- I react the same way. To me,
| these writings are only opinions.
|
| The internet is absolutely loaded with programmers offering
| opinions or repeating the opinions of others but framing
| them as _directives_. Do this or don 't do that. Or the
| more subtle: I like X and and you should, too. These
| authors can be argumentative if the opinions are
| challenged, as if one was disobeying a directive, or
| contradicting a fact, instead of disagreeing with an
| individual or group opinion.
| nottrobin wrote:
| I'm not so convinced of the difference between the "real
| world" and online. Misinformation, propaganda &
| charlatans all existed in droves long before the
| internet. In fact, it's almost certainly true that your
| average internet user is far better informed about actual
| facts than the average pre-internet person. Scepticism
| about what you read is advisable everywhere, internet
| users have become better at it than previous generations.
|
| Hence, I also don't think there's anything at all wrong
| with the imperative style of writing (or I might as well
| say "there is nothing wrong with it"). Since it is
| incumbent upon the reader to consider whether or how far
| to trust the author anyway, it should make no difference
| whether the statements are presented as fact or opinion.
| To treat them differently is to give the author far too
| much power over your thinking.
|
| And so, as the author, given that any sensible reader
| will put your statements in context anyway, you might as
| well simply state them directly.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "Scepticism about what you read is advisable everywhere
| [unsolicited advice], internet users have become better
| at it than previous generations.[opinion stated as if
| fact]"
|
| https://ed.stanford.edu/news/stanford-researchers-find-
| stude...
|
| https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-
| nea/stude...
|
| https://www.chronicle.com/article/students-fall-for-
| misinfor...
| tyre wrote:
| Having written other things that are popular doesn't answer
| to the OP's comment nuanced arguments are a good and helpful
| thing.
|
| PG doesn't pattern match as such because other people are
| blowhards. He's actually arrogant. Which is fine! He's been
| very successful enough times that it seems unlikely to be
| coincidence.
|
| But he also writes essays that are complete whiffs. It's not
| an ego thing by the reader. There are many examples of no
| nuance where there is actually a hell of a lot of nuance in
| the subject at hand. So people quote the essays or act on
| them blindly because they rely on them as exhaustive when I
| don't think that that is the case or his actual intention.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| _PG tends to write in a, "take it or leave it" style, you get
| used to it. He's never, to my eyes, seemed interested in
| convincing you via flashy argument_
|
| PG's "responses" are a good contrast, if you're curious what
| "pg trying to persuade the reader" sounds like.
| http://paulgraham.com/kedrosky.html
| fossuser wrote:
| > "Most authors write in a "fancy" way to invoke a feeling in
| the reader. They don't add random words to "seem cool"."
|
| I'd bet money this is mostly wrong, and _most_ authors are
| writing in a fancy way to seem fancy. That 's part of the
| reason their writing is often bad.
|
| There are exceptions, but I'd argue that failure is the general
| case.
|
| > "I don't understand a thing of this."
|
| Clarity of thought without purple prose fluff? That's my take
| away from it anyway. Basically, most of the time extra purple
| prose fluff is not poetry and just gets in the way. Poetry
| would be an exception to this rule.
|
| This essay is also similar to another one of his from 2015
| (which has more explicit examples):
| http://www.paulgraham.com/talk.html
| ulisesrmzroche wrote:
| Actually, poetry frowns on purple prose too. Hence the
| "prose" part.
|
| But you can't call adjectives and similes and metaphors all
| purple prose.
| fossuser wrote:
| Sure - and there's some subjectivity to 'write simply'.
|
| The idea is good though, bias towards clarity and be aware
| of how complex your writing is. Don't use big words to try
| and seem smart or fancy because they obscure meaning -
| there are rare exceptions to this, but they should be
| intentional and rare.
| ulisesrmzroche wrote:
| I agree about jargon and such but PG writes without any
| literary devices at all. Don't you think that's going too
| far?
|
| "That dude is sneaky" "That dude is sneakier than a fox"
|
| Why cut out fox?
| fossuser wrote:
| I think most of the time it should be cut out, the times
| you leave it in should be intentional and rare.
|
| If you read stuff that's doing that kind of thing all of
| the time it makes it harder to read and the writing is
| often worse. It's something newer writers tend to do for
| some reason, I'm not sure why.
| ulisesrmzroche wrote:
| "It follows that any struggle against the abuse of
| language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring
| candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes"
|
| Removing the simile reduces the meaning of "sentimental
| archaism". Similes clarify meaning. That's what all
| imagery is for.
| gridspy wrote:
| Or instead of >It follows that any struggle against the
| abuse of language is a sentimental archaism
|
| You could say
|
| Struggling against the abuse of language is like being
| emotionally trapped in the past.
|
| There is no reason to use two rarely used words
| (sentimental, archaism) in that sentence.
| fossuser wrote:
| Sometimes it clarifies meaning, most of the time it adds
| nothing. "Sneakier than a fox" doesn't help.
|
| That quote is from Orwell's Politics and the English
| Language: https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-
| foundation/orwel...
|
| While the one sentence out of context seems unnecessarily
| complex, most of Orwell's writing is pretty simple to
| read.
|
| Another bit from that essay:
|
| "The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it,
| or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost
| indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.
| This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the
| most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and
| especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as
| certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the
| abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of
| speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and
| less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and
| more and more of phrases tacked together like the
| sections of a prefabricated hen-house."
|
| Arguably, Orwell would probably agree with PG.
|
| Using imagery to clarify meaning can be done well, but
| part of doing it well is using the tools sparingly and
| intentionally with an eye towards clarity.
|
| Another relevant bit from that Orwell essay:
|
| "As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst
| does not consist in picking out words for the sake of
| their meaning and inventing images in order to make the
| meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long
| strips of words which have already been set in order by
| someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer
| humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it
| is easy. It is easier - even quicker, once you have the
| habit - to say 'In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable
| assumption' that than to say ' _I think_ '."
|
| I'd argue 'sneakier than a fox' is an example of what
| he's talking about. A lame pre-existing set of words that
| does little to explain or clarify anything.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _There is basically no argumentation happening here and most
| statements are just thrown out as truths._ "
|
| If you read through Paul's previous essays, you may notice that
| he falls into this habit frequently.
| planet-and-halo wrote:
| Writing is an imperfect technology for moving thoughts between
| minds. "Writing simply" is valuable if it communicates your
| thought more efficiently and accurately (and it is indeed a
| common peccadillo to write thoughts in a bloated and
| inefficient manner), but like you're pointing out, some
| thoughts are not compressible beyond a certain point. For
| example, here's some Ovid quoted in a book I'm reading. I'd
| like to hear how you could write this "simply" without losing
| resolution of the thought from which it originated:
|
| --------
|
| There is no greater wonder than to range
|
| The starry heights, to leave the earth's dull regions,
|
| To ride the clouds, to stand on Atlas' shoulders,
|
| And see, far off, far down, the little figures
|
| Wandering here and there, devoid of reason,
|
| Anxious, in fear of death, and so advise them,
|
| And so make fate an open book...
|
| Full sail, I voyage Over the boundless ocean, and I tell you
|
| Nothing is permanent in all the world. All things are fluid;
| every image forms,
|
| Wandering through change. Time is itself a river In constant
| movement, and the hours flow by
|
| Like water, wave on wave, pursued, pursuing,
|
| Forever fugitive, forever new. That which has been, is not;
| that which was not, Begins to be; motion and moment always In
| process of renewal...
|
| Not even the so-called elements are constant... Nothing remains
| the same: the great renewer, Nature, makes form from form, and,
| oh, believe me That nothing ever dies....
| [deleted]
| fattybob wrote:
| always good, and always some things to take away.
| [deleted]
| Tomte wrote:
| My standard recommendation for writing advice is Joseph M.
| Williams' "Style: Ten Lessons In Clarity And Grace"[1].
|
| Another good one is George Gopen's "The Sense of Structure". It's
| less inspirational than Clarity and Grace, but it shows more
| hands-on how to construct sentences and paragraphs.
|
| [1] or "Lessons in Clarity and Grace" or "Toward Clarity and
| Grace" - they are all substantially the same book
| iambateman wrote:
| If you liked this essay, check out Politics and the English
| Language by Orwell.
|
| It changed the way I think about writing and goes into a bit more
| detail.
|
| https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
| meagher wrote:
| Another piece of writing advice: Never use adverbs.
| Veen wrote:
| 'Never' is an adverb.
| [deleted]
| jfk13 wrote:
| So the two-word title here already failed? Hmm.
| solidist wrote:
| I've failed at writing. In its cathartic process I sketched.
|
| https://medium.com/@solidi/the-one-about-blogging-cd9e65a205...
| throwawaygh wrote:
| _> My goal when writing might be called saltintesta: the ideas
| leap into your head and you barely notice the words that got them
| there._
|
| Simple and "saltintesta" writing is effective in many contexts.
| However, as any critic of Twitter culture can tell you, the style
| has an important pitfall.
|
| Why do so many people react strongly to seemingly innocuous
| Graham essays? How does a prescription to "Write Simply" cause
| such strong emotional reactions?
|
| I think it's in part because Graham writes in a simple and
| memetic ("saltintesta") style about not-so-simple topics. He
| writes to a very large audience is filled with readers who have a
| different latent perspective on that missing detail and nuance.
| Some of those readers fill in the nuance and context differently
| from how Graham intended. Unfortunately, they do so while _barely
| noticing the words that got them there!_ Hence, conflict.
|
| But can we really blame the reader for falling into this pit,
| when the author's goal was for the words to be barely noticed?
|
| The comments on this article are a case study in the benefits and
| pitfalls of the Simple and "saltintesta" writing style. The style
| demands a lot of the reader's latent context. It therefore works
| well when writing to a group of people who are very much like the
| author but breaks down when writing across even small differences
| in culture, life experiences, or values.
| apples_oranges wrote:
| Please forward this to the people that write the TOS for software
| and websites.
| sixhobbits wrote:
| > the more deeply readers will engage with it
|
| You're already hypocritical - readers don't want to 'engage' with
| writing. People don't want to 'engage' at all. This is not an
| ordinary way of talking about things outside a pretty niche
| circle of VCs and marketing managers.
|
| Choose what to read and who to associate with as well as it will
| strongly influence your own language :)
| bin_bash wrote:
| I don't think I agree. I find 'engage' to be a fairly average
| verb in this context. More importantly, if that's the most
| hypocritical word you can find I think he's probably taking his
| own advice in this article.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| I think he's talking about "engage" in the meaning of the word
| before it became a metric. Like to think about it, try it out
| in your own life, and discuss with others. Not view, like,
| share, comment, subscribe.
| [deleted]
| Fiveplus wrote:
| >That's why some people write that way, to conceal the fact that
| they have nothing to say.
|
| That's a great point.
| cainxinth wrote:
| Copywriter here. Sometimes the client gives me the barest
| thread of a topic, some minor, new product or service or
| partnership for them, something that could be covered
| comprehensively in 300 words... and then they say they want a
| 1000+ word blog post on it (for SEO purposes).
|
| That article is going to end up being mostly fluff, and there's
| not much I can do about it. Sure, I can work in some background
| and play up the implications of the news, but really, it's just
| content for content's sake, so that they can stay in their
| customers' feeds.
|
| And, just for the record, those type of articles are not my
| forte or preference, but are an unavoidable reality in my line
| of work.
| amackera wrote:
| Sounds like your clients might benefit from reading this
| essay :P
| throwawaygh wrote:
| The text is being optimized for an algorithmic reader, not
| a human reader. For this essay to make any difference to
| OP, Google's search engineers would have to read it.
| clwk wrote:
| I think we have Hemingway to blame for this meme. I wonder why so
| very many authors feel the need to explicitly write these 'simple
| ode to simplicity' pieces -- where each sentence in the
| exhortation has itself been optimized iteratively until no waste
| remains, so no lexical pixel has gone to waste. Sentences like
| 'Simple writing also lasts better,' are the unfortunate artifacts
| of this process. These are like the Teslas of brevity-
| pornographers: a mere five words attesting to hours of careful
| whittling; a praise-worthy awkwardness that could never have been
| produced on a native-speaker's first try.
| randomsearch wrote:
| Na, I think he just got that wrong. If he revisited the essay
| after a few years he'd probably spot it. Stuck out for me too.
| But a kind of "snow blindness" develops towards written content
| after a while, and mistakes slip through.
| agustif wrote:
| > The other reason my writing ends up being simple is the way I
| do it. I write the first draft fast, then spend days editing it,
| trying to get everything just right. Much of this editing is
| cutting, and that makes simple writing even simpler.
|
| ruthless editing seems a pretty big factor in the writing well
| result.
| cousin_it wrote:
| When something feels easy to read, it's not just a matter of
| using simple words. To maximize scanability, you need to use a
| mix of long and short words, and also mix long and short
| sentences, until you achieve a kind of "flow". Famously,
| Dovlatov's prose (in Russian) avoids having words that start with
| the same letter in the same sentence, which is unnoticeable to
| the reader but makes the words just fly off the page.
|
| Another trick I've found is making sure each word has unambiguous
| function. Here's some examples from other comments:
|
| _I had this impression recently while reading the Akbarnama,
| which is a sort of court-approved biography of the Mughal Emperor
| Akbar, written by his Grand Vizier_ -- Was the Emperor written,
| or was it the biography?
|
| _There are some cases in which your work demands a certain level
| of precision_ -- It could 've continued like "in which your work
| demands are excessive", so you don't know if "demands" is a noun
| or a verb until you read on.
|
| _That "simple" writing lasts longer is disproved by many works
| of literature that have made their way to us through history_ --
| It could've continued like "that simple writing is not so
| simple", so you don't know if "that" is a conjunction or
| determiner until you read on.
|
| These are small things, but somehow the more I notice them, the
| clearer my writing becomes.
| keiferski wrote:
| _Was the Emperor written, or was it the biography?_
|
| You skipped the first half of my sentence, which makes it
| pretty clear who wrote the book. At least, I think it does. In
| any case, you did make me realize the last clause is awkwardly
| written, so thanks! I amended my original comment.
| bobbiechen wrote:
| I think (linguistic) parsing fits your description of
| "function" here - like the opposite of a garden-path sentence
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
| jxramos wrote:
| > avoid having words that start with the same letter in the
| same sentence.
|
| I remember when I was a teenager I used to get frustrated that
| English words had so many homophones and overlaps and synonyms.
| I thought why can't every concept and idea have its own
| distinct word? Why would we clutter up the language with fuzzy
| overlaps, overloaded terms, and the need to disambiguate so
| frequently? The disambiguation melts away with experience as
| you begin to sharpen your contextual locating skills. But I
| recall at one point I realized that one of the great things
| that is afforded by the language is that you have slack for
| adding phonetic variation to your sentences and they, for lack
| of a better word, sound less dumb. When something is repeated
| too much in a sentence or paragraph somehow it affords less
| clarity, and comes off childlike in some way. There's something
| about it that you can't quite twist out another facet on a
| subject through plain repetition. I never matured that idea any
| further, but it seemed like a fascinating insight into the
| operational workings of English.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| Along the lines of what you point out, I've noticed that the
| word 'read' often causes misparsing - but you don't realize
| until you've read on for a bit more and realize that the
| sentence doesn't make any sense. At that point you read the
| sentence twice again and realize that it was using the other
| meaning of read.
|
| This is something that I've run into commonly enough that I try
| to write 'read' only for the present tense 'read a book', and
| 'redd' for the past tense 'redd the email.'
| benja123 wrote:
| This is not just in writing, but in any form of communication
| including presentations or public speaking.
|
| Writing simply and learning how to present things in such a way
| that anyone can understand has probably been the most valuable
| skill for my career progression.
|
| I have seen too many cases where technical/domain experts miss
| this and instead use words that only people who work in the same
| domain as them would understand. The result is that when they do
| a presentation at least half the people in the room have no idea
| what they are speaking about but are too polite to say anything.
|
| I also live in a country where most of the population are not
| native english speakers and this has allowed me to understand
| that a lot of people think by using complicated language they
| sound smarter, which is the furthest possible thing from the
| truth. In one incident I actually had someone who liked to show
| everyone how smart he was ask me, if I can help him find a more
| complicated way/wording to say something in a presentation he was
| working on so he can sound smarter. My only assumption was that
| for him people not understanding acted as a giant ego boost. He
| was PhD, that was also lecturing at one of the local
| universities. I can only imagine that his students had absolutely
| no idea what he was talking about most of the time and I am sure
| he took great pride in it.
|
| In university, back in Canada where I was born I had a similar
| experience when one of my math teachers started the year off by
| telling the entire class how he is very proud of his vocabulary.
| Needless to say on one of the tests he used a word that no one
| understood. After numerous students asked him the same question
| he finally got angry and announced to the entire class what the
| word meant.
|
| Personally I encourage my team to do the following in every work
| presentation: 1. Pretend you are presenting to a friend or family
| member who has no idea about the subject matter 2. Any words that
| would be known by people who are either inexperienced or outside
| of your expertise should include a definition the first time you
| use it. It can be written or it can be verbal, but it needs to be
| there
| amznbyebyebye wrote:
| Haha this is the guy who writes like an SAT exam question. It is
| very flat and boring, unmemorable. Of course the guy is a
| bazillionaire, I may never be like him, but the style of writing
| is stale like sparkling water gone flat. But I have read probably
| every one of his articles and taken away his ideas as the
| canonical guide for startup wisdom and success.
| paulpauper wrote:
| The reading passages of standardized tests are not just dull
| but intentionally full of filler and awkward phrasing, to throw
| off the reader. Paul is good at conveying his ideas succinctly
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Haha this is the guy who writes like an SAT exam question.
| It is very flat and boring, unmemorable._
|
| However PG writes (and philosophically/socially I disagree with
| a lot), he has had a large following for his posts / essays,
| aside from his YC role (from people who have nothing to do with
| startups). That's hardly what you gain from being "flat,
| boring, and unmemorable".
|
| Besides, you have missed the point. He is not arguing for plain
| style as opposed to literary flourishes or fun jokes, or
| whatever you consider not flat.
|
| He is arguing for clarity as opposed to flourishes for
| flourishes sake, academic obscurantism, and so on.
|
| You can write simply without it being "boring and unmemorable".
| Hemingway over Tom Wolfe, or Hume over Nietchze.
| davidivadavid wrote:
| I think he is indeed arguing for clarity, which is why
| arguing for simplicity undermines his own argument.
|
| Nietzsche is a lucid writer (well, Zarathustra excepted).
| Rewriting Nietzsche to be more "simple" would certainly be a
| gargantuan mistake.
| [deleted]
| cafard wrote:
| Jacques Barzun somewhere remarked that what makes for difficult
| reading is not length or number of words but density of thought.
| He instanced Dickens as a writer who used long words and
| complicated syntax but whom everyone finds easy to read.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > the ideas leap into your head and you barely notice the words
| that got them there.
|
| Ah, the good old wrong idea that somehow language is a tool that
| can clone ideas from one brain to another. It doesn't work like
| that.
| davidivadavid wrote:
| Right. I'm surprised at how little thought people seem to have
| put into that idea.
|
| You can hear echoes of that when Musk talks about all the
| Neuralink stuff and just communicating with "pure thoughts" or
| whatever. What these pure thoughts and ideas, disconnected from
| language, are supposed to be, is left as an exercise to the
| listener.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| I am coming from this angle
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypodermic_needle_model
| just1morething wrote:
| Can we write our way from the idea idea? If so, how? If not,
| why?
| epalm wrote:
| Anyone else raising an eyebrow at a guy like PG with a non-SSL
| site?
| ulisesrmzroche wrote:
| Yeah, I saw that too. Notice how that normally gets folks
| crucified here.
| krosaen wrote:
| Elmore Leonard gives similar advice, summing it up nicely, "Try
| to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/16/arts/writers-writing-easy...
| jakub_g wrote:
| I started reading "On Writing Well" by W.Zinsser (one of often
| recommended classics) lately.
|
| I've only read first few chapters, but one of the core ideas is,
| apart from writing simply, to write concisely:
|
| - If you can use one word instead of three to convey same idea,
| use one.
|
| - Iterate on what you wrote, and ruthlessly eliminate words that
| don't add value.
|
| It's illustrated with a real example where he crosses out a dozen
| of phrases from a short text: https://ibb.co/k62CkLR
|
| It sounds extreme but I found this framework very useful e.g.
| when writing code comments, wiki docs, pull request info etc.
| rishflab wrote:
| Being concise and to-the-point is just as important as using
| simple English.
|
| That blog post is too long for the ideas it conveys (kinda
| ironic?). Here are some things I found tiring to read:
|
| "There's an Italian dish called saltimbocca, which means "leap
| into the mouth." My goal when writing might be called
| saltintesta: the ideas leap into your head and you barely notice
| the words that got them there."
|
| ^ This analogy is distracting and not required to communicate a
| simple concept.
|
| "It's too much to hope that writing could ever be pure ideas. You
| might not even want it to be. But for most writers, most of the
| time, that's the goal to aim for. The gap between most writing
| and pure ideas is not filled with poetry."
|
| ^Just delete this. What are you trying to say here?
|
| "It's like trailing a long train behind you that readers have to
| carry."
|
| ^I don't understand this analogy. Long train I am trying to carry
| behind me? That is a ridiculous and distracting image you have
| put into the readers mind.
|
| "If the friction of reading is low enough, more keep going till
| the end."
|
| ^This is an obtuse and awkward way of saying: "People are more
| likely to read things they easily understand"
|
| "Indeed, lasting is not merely an accidental quality of chairs,
| or writing. It's a sign you did a good job."
|
| ^ Where did chairs come from?
|
| But although these are all real advantages of writing simply,
| none of them are why I do it. The main reason I write simply is
| that it offends me not to."
|
| ^ Delete, doesn't add any value tbh
| CivBase wrote:
| I'd rather "write usefully" than "write simply". If a "fancy"
| word is more useful for getting my thoughts across, then I will
| use it.
|
| I think of "useful" language as a balance of precision,
| concision, and understandability. If I use terms that I don't
| expect my audience to understand, then my language not very
| "useful" even if it's the most precise and concise. Conversely,
| there's no reason for me to refrain from terms which I expect my
| audience to understand if using them makes my language more
| precise or concise.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| > The other reason my writing ends up being simple is the way I
| do it. I write the first draft fast, then spend days editing it,
| trying to get everything just right. Much of this editing is
| cutting, and that makes simple writing even simpler.
|
| Related: There was a post here a few days ago, where the author
| described 2 styles of writing: Writing start to end, naturally
| evolving, and working out of sequence, with many edits. She focus
| of that article was the author preferring the former. This
| article's author prefers the latter.
| jb1991 wrote:
| At this point I think we just need to add this website to a
| penalty list and give it some small fraction of the calculated
| score it gets to be on the front page.
| gojomo wrote:
| For grins I pasted PG's text into the demo readability tool at
| <https://app.readable.com/text/?demo>.
|
| 'Write Simply' received an overall grade of 'A', and a very-
| approachable Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of 5.9. It's said to be
| readable by 100% of the literate general public, which is only
| 85% of the full general public.
|
| But, out of the 507 words and 38 sentences, 4 sentences were
| flagged as "very long" (over 30 syllables) and 15 as "long" (over
| 20 syllables).
|
| Two 'hard words' - over 12 letters or over 4 syllables - were
| flagged, somewhat ironically: "unnecessarily intellectual".
| just1morething wrote:
| Paul is on the better side of every moat he makes.
| nlh wrote:
| I think this is PG's worst opinion.
|
| The man is undeniably intelligent, undeniably successful, and
| undeniably talented in business (and deserves huge credit for his
| contributions to the startup community).
|
| But I just thing he's deeply wrong here. His simple writing style
| (and those that have inherited/copied it) is a detriment to the
| community.
|
| It's the take of a (talented!) engineering mind. It's the same
| attitude that engineers often take with building digital products
| ("we don't need a designer - just present the UI elements simply
| and people will get it.")
|
| Design is an art. Communication is an art. Writing is an art.
| Essays are an art. They have function, of course, and a simple
| straightforward style is, indeed, a style that is more functional
| for some.
|
| But it also diminishes the joy of reading and purees it into the
| blandness of an economics textbook. I've tried to read his essays
| and yes, they have some great ideas, but they're just....bland.
|
| They're like Soylent for the mind. Does it deliver nutrition to
| your body in an maximally-efficient vehicle? Sure. Do you _enjoy_
| drinking that Soylent shake?
|
| _shiver_
|
| EDIT: I should explicitly clarify something: I'm not arguing that
| one should use jargon or _unnecessarily_ complex words in their
| writing. That 's obviously bad. But there's a gap between the
| "simple writing style" and "enjoyable rich prose".
| andy_ppp wrote:
| "The gap between most writing and pure ideas is not filled with
| poetry." It's a simple sentence, filled with ideas, humour
| even. And it comes across vividly for me as some prone to over
| elaboration. It always comes back to "as simple as possible"
| being a rule to live by, write code by.
| curiousllama wrote:
| You ever try to read some social science papers? Or a
| consultant's slide deck? They're quagmires of "wtf does this
| even mean?"
|
| In college (and then consulting), I was basically trained to
| write like I'm trying to convince someone I'm smart. It only
| got in the way once I left and started trying to communicate
| real ideas. Graham's advice is very good for mundane, day-to-
| day writing.
| randomsearch wrote:
| I would guess such writing in the humanities is exactly the
| sort of style he's taking aim at.
| nitrogen wrote:
| I think it depends on where you are from and what you read
| growing up. I hail from a place that most outsiders would
| describe as unsophisticated, so naturally I rebelled in my
| youth by reading the most technically and prosaically dense
| language I could find. While I do still enjoy that type writing
| -- fiction books where I have to keep a dictionary, calculator,
| and pad of graph paper handy -- for professional communication
| pg and Feynman and all the advocates for simplicity are right.
|
| There is no benefit to insiders or outsiders in a field to
| unnecessary use of jargon when simpler forms of expression are
| available. I greatly the prefer the no-nonsense, practical,
| straight talking, ignore the eggshells on the floor, git-r-done
| communication of a classical sci-fi engineer.
| djoldman wrote:
| Some of the comments here might benefit from what I believe is an
| unstated assumption in this piece.
|
| The assumption is that the purpose of your writing is to argue
| for a particular viewpoint/stance/take on an issue in a sober
| way.
|
| I don't believe the author is saying "write simply" if you are
| writing poetry or you are trying to inspire and motivate with
| emotion.
|
| Most of the author's writings are dry, devoid of fluff, and to
| the point, which I think flows from embracing the thinking behind
| this piece.
|
| Purpose dictates style.
| mromanuk wrote:
| Achieving simplicity is hard. Allow me to explain, with a
| software analogy, too many times "customers" or users wants a
| "simple" solution, wrongly expecting that a simple final product
| was made with a simple implementation, which is not the case at
| all. It's the opposite. I would expect the same process about
| writing, a final and concise essay requires tons of work,
| removing a word and replacing it with a common alternative and
| rewording phrases to make it simpler (for the reader). I
| understand Paul statement as "use a limited and common
| vocabulary" rather than complex words and sentences with fluff.
| hirundo wrote:
| "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." --
| Blaise Pascal
|
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/
| chrischapman wrote:
| Wow. Love this. Also, it seems like it could apply to
| software development, as in... "If I had more time, I would
| have written less code."
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| "The greatest elegance is simplicity" - somebody
| K0nserv wrote:
| On Writing Well[0] is one of the best books I've read. I'd
| recommended it to anyone who wants to improve their writing.
|
| 0: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53343.On_Writing_Well
| eatonphil wrote:
| I agree. It is an excellent book that will teach you to use
| fewer and simpler words. I think it makes a lot of sense in
| technical and business writing.
|
| Aside from knowing this though the most effective thing I've
| learned to do is to keep re-reading what I wrote. Reorganize
| phrases to keep connected thoughts nearby in text. In English
| you have a lot of freedom to put phrases all over the place in
| a sentence. When I write I very rarely put all the connected
| phrases next to each other in the first pass.
|
| But I guess I'd generalize that to say: taking the time to re-
| read what you wrote and edit it actually makes a big
| difference. It took a lot of shitty writing and overcoming
| laziness in school before I learned this lesson.
| mbesto wrote:
| Also highly recommend Writing Tools:
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51750.Writing_Tools
| zimpenfish wrote:
| Although you should probably take into consideration that some
| professional linguists think the book is trash containing
| "prescriptivist poppycock" that the author doesn't even follow.
|
| https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=18345
|
| Also a tiny study on whether adj/adv usage correlates with
| good/bad writing:
| https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=18398
| hc-taway wrote:
| A lot of writing rules are of the "follow it until you know
| how and when to break it" variety. That way if you never
| learn how to break them correctly, your writing is still a
| lot better than it was. It's no surprise that studies of
| writing already known to be good will find much rule-
| breaking, as one is not surprised to find race cars on a race
| track moving faster than we'd want any car to, ordinarily.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > A lot of writing rules are of the "follow it until you
| know how and when to break it" variety.
|
| Prescriptivists never seem to add that clarifying nuance to
| their advice though.
|
| > That way if you never learn how to break them correctly,
| your writing is still a lot better than it was.
|
| That assumes their advice is good in the first place - when
| professional linguists call it trash, I'd have to wonder if
| it is.
| hc-taway wrote:
| > Prescriptivists never seem to add that clarifying
| nuance to their advice though.
|
| They often do, in my experience. AFAIK it hasn't been
| common to attempt any kind of real, strict prescriptivism
| in English since the middle of last century (yes, I'm
| sure a few examples exist). These days it's mostly "write
| like this--until you know better" or "avoid X if your
| audience is Y, for such-and-such reason".
| tablatom wrote:
| The first review on that page[1] is a well argued counterpoint
| to Graham's essay. Getting your ideas understood is often only
| one part of what you're trying to achieve.
|
| If that really is your only goal, then I agree, the simpler the
| better.
|
| [1]
| https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/755379555?book_show_ac...
| ycombinete wrote:
| Having read a fair amount of Zizek and some Foucault I have
| to agree. Obfuscation can be just as useful as clarity.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Can you explain that? As an engineer I think generally
| anything that can be done more simply is nearly always
| better.
| keiferski wrote:
| Not the parent poster, but: think of speed bumps. They
| force you to slow down and pay more attention to the
| road.
|
| Some writers, particularly post-modern ones, aim at the
| same thing. By forcing you to read their works carefully,
| you'll (in theory) be forced to think about them more.
| randomsearch wrote:
| That feels like the author is saying "I'm so clever you
| need to be told when to think about this," whereas i
| would prefer to think at my own pace, without deliberate
| obfuscation, thanks very much.
|
| If it's a work of art, fair enough. If you're trying to
| explain or argue something... then you're probably hiding
| the holes in your argument or trying to sound smarter
| than you are.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| I don't think this essay precludes that either, the 1% of
| 1% of books that are made better by being Proust rather
| than Vonnegut. And the chances of you being Proust are
| essentially zero.
| hntrader wrote:
| The pretension is the point. The readers want to come
| across as sophisticated by claiming to have understood
| impenetrable gibberish.
| prionassembly wrote:
| If anything, it's useful that language can sometimes _slow
| you down_. It's one of the things language is able to do.
| Not everything benefits from sliding in as slickly as
| possible, letting you use your "mental models" to quickly
| grasp an idea you don't already have.
|
| I'm not fond of Foucault, but from time to time I explain
| to my pragmatic wife what Deleuze or Zizek are all about in
| $book, and as best as I try to explain them in plain words,
| much of what I got doesn't come across. Tradutore
| traditore.
| keithwhor wrote:
| I do think there can be a beauty in more esoteric words and
| longer sentences that cause them to feel more like poetry. This
| can, perhaps counterintuitively, make sentences feel more
| conversational as opposed to less.
|
| I can edit the above to;
|
| > I do think specific words and long sentences have their place.
| They can be used to alter the flow of a sentence and make it feel
| more conversational instead of less.
|
| But it's not the way I talk. I enjoy the way you can alter the
| cadence of sentence to impact the reader. For example: the
| phrase, "perhaps counterintuitively," is like a rolling hill the
| reader spends extra energy to climb but then engages them with
| the writer, "I'm interested, I like hearing about
| counterintuitive things" -- it's almost an invitation. You've set
| an expectation that something counterintuitive is ahead, so
| what's next?
|
| Generally, I could use more of Paul's advice in my own writing.
| And that's the fun of writing, learning to write is a very
| organic process. But I'm sure everyone can find their own style
| somewhere in between simple, poetic, natural, or whatever makes
| you feel the happiest about your work.
| riemannzeta wrote:
| Regarding writing as editing:
|
| This is a big problem in churches. As a child and young adult I
| spent countless hours listening to sermons on Sunday mornings. At
| some point, I realized that many sermons were delivered without
| editing. Every week the pastor has to deliver a certain amount of
| content, regardless of whether they have anything valuable to
| say. As a result, at many churches what you get is a combination
| of plagiarism and stream of consciousness. At only a few did I
| find any evidence of editing, and at even fewer editing by
| another person. The difference in quality was immense, and I
| believe that to a substantial extent the growth of the church
| would be correlated with that factor.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-03-11 23:00 UTC)