[HN Gopher] What to read to become a better writer
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What to read to become a better writer
Author : gglanzani
Score : 97 points
Date : 2022-09-24 11:30 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| trenning wrote:
| Two books which I read this year that have helped me become a
| better writer are,
|
| Charles Bukowski On Writing
|
| Kurt Vonnegut Letters
|
| These books aren't so much about how to write better but more so
| a look into the minds of two good authors. Helped me get over
| some of the hurdles of writing. Probably not very useful if
| you're looking to be an improved work document writer but for
| creative writing they were great.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Add Orwell's essay on the English language.
| https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| This isn't very interesting, these are all well known books you
| can find listed elsewhere. I was hoping for something original.
| ayewo wrote:
| At the end of the article, they link to their online writing
| course that costs PS1,475 so this is more of an ad than an
| attempt at originality.
|
| https://education.economist.com/courses/professionalcommunic...
| freddyym wrote:
| Orwell's Politics and the English Language is a masterful essay.
| Forget that he gets his own rules wrong when setting them (twice)
| - but it rarely fails. It also happens to be the basis for the
| Economist's style guide...
| kwijibob wrote:
| I clicked with interest.
|
| Ugly cookie popup was the first thing I read.
|
| Then some big ads at the top and sides begged for my attention.
|
| Next was the paywall box selling me some complicated subscription
| deal.
|
| Dreaming of a world wide web that cherishes writing.
| eatonphil wrote:
| The books that (I think) made the biggest impact on my writing
| are Zinsser's On Writing Well, everything Hemingway (e.g. The Sun
| Also Rises, A Moveable Feast), Antoine de Saint-Exupery's Wind,
| Sand and Stars, and Beryl Markham's West with the Night.
|
| The common theme being simplicity and informal, but correct,
| speech.
| snitzr wrote:
| How to Write, Speak and Think More Effectively by Rudolph Flesch
| is still a great book and good bang for your buck. I got mine on
| bookfinder.com
| copperx wrote:
| Huh, spam bots are getting better every day. That's a good book
| suggestion.
| koheripbal wrote:
| I have found re-reading my own writing helps tremendously.
|
| We often do not appreciate how vague we are and how many biases
| we embed in our writing until we read them again outside of our
| current mindset.
|
| This is why portant emails should be composed, and then wait
| until later before re-reading.
|
| You will often find yourself rewriting entire communications
| because your original message was
| unclear/emotional/combative/etc...
| blockwriter wrote:
| I've been doing an exhaustive review of my diaries from the
| last 6 odd years. I am amazed by how many sentences start with
| one idea, lapse in the middle, and conclude almost as if
| another person had taken over. Evidently, some thought had
| transpired in that interval, but I failed to transcribe it to
| the page.
| eatonphil wrote:
| > portant emails
|
| portant?
| exac wrote:
| The point is that re-reading catches errors, like the
| spelling of "important".
| tomrod wrote:
| > This is why portant emails should be composed, and then wait
| until later before re-reading.
|
| Not sure if intentional, but if so this was a fantastic way to
| emphasize your point!
| mattbee wrote:
| My recommendation is _First You Write a Sentence._ by Joe Moran.
| It feels like a recent classic and I re-read chapters all the
| time.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| I've read the Pinker book. There were some useful takeaways.
| However, in general I found it long winded which is ironic as
| most writing tips include a recommendation of brevity.
|
| Read it if you feel you must, but lower your expectations.
| TeacherTortoise wrote:
| https://archive.ph/38AGY
| [deleted]
| montefischer wrote:
| From Schopenhauer's essay, "On reading and books":
|
| > No literary quality can be attained by reading writers who
| possess it: be it, for example, persuasiveness, imagination, the
| gift of drawing comparisons, boldness or bitterness, brevity or
| grace, facility of expression or wit, unexpected contrasts, a
| laconic manner, naivete, and the like. But if we are already
| gifted with these qualities--that is to say, if we possess them
| potentia--we can call them forth and bring them to consciousness;
| we can discern to what uses they are to be put; we can be
| strengthened in our inclination, nay, may have courage, to use
| them; we can judge by examples the effect of their application
| and so learn the correct use of them; and it is only after we
| have accomplished all this that we actu possess these qualities.
| This is the only way in which reading can form writing, since it
| teaches us the use to which we can put our own natural gifts; and
| in order to do this it must be taken for granted that these
| qualities are in us. Without them we learn nothing from reading
| but cold, dead mannerisms, and we become mere imitators.
|
| Gutenberg link:
| https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11945/11945-h/11945-h.htm#li...
| [deleted]
| mjw1007 wrote:
| Did Schopenhauer go on to give any reasons to believe that the
| things he was claiming there are true?
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| I dislike this view, for learning to write or anything else. It
| has an implicit assertion that all human quality is innate, and
| we only ever learn how to recognize and express it. This means
| that we can never actually learn anything new, we can only
| learn new ways to pull from our innate quality, and everything
| else is just imitation.
|
| It implies we are born with some sort of immutable value locked
| inside of us, which I disagree with.
| rizzom5000 wrote:
| I read it more like the word 'attain' means to internalize
| those writing abilities are your own; and reading others will
| not work to achieve developing such an ability. As such, this
| advice is about the same as most advice I've seen from great
| writers - read a lot, but write more.
| geocrasher wrote:
| Stephen King, On Writing. No matter what your writing style is or
| what your subject matter is, be it fiction or not, this book will
| turn any writer into a better writer.
|
| Note that I didn't say it'll turn any writer into a good writer.
| It'll turn them into a better one. A good writer could become
| great and a terrible writer can become slightly less terrible.
| It's all subjective.
|
| One thing I've learned is that some people have a way with words
| and some just don't. And there's nothing wrong with that. But all
| of us need to write at some point and that book will definitely
| help because it helps the person focus on what's most important
| to the story rather than what's the most important to the writer.
| notart666 wrote:
| That's not how that works. Writing is about practice,
| repetition and feedback. Improvement is gradual and lifelong to
| say that only certain kinds of people get better is a pretty
| bad take. Anyone can become competent at writing. It's just
| many do not have the prerequisite requirements to begin
| improving on certain parts and never learn of their deficencies
| or how to fix them.
| [deleted]
| ohiovr wrote:
| I found recording a read aloud of what I write helps me condense
| writing flow.
| weekendvampire wrote:
| 100%. After I'm done with my last draft I always read the whole
| thing loudly, and end up changing at least a word or two in
| every paragraph. Usually it's the small stuff - eg. using "he
| instead went" instead of "instead he went" because my brain
| expects a sentence a certain way that "flows" well and I've
| written something else.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| I've developed that further to getting Siri to read it out to
| me.
| ayewo wrote:
| Even better is to listen to how your words flow using a Text-
| to-Speech (TTS) tool. I got this tip on HN.
|
| I use it a lot for long articles that I've already spent far
| too much time editing to help me catch sentences that could be
| broken up for clarity.
| waboremo wrote:
| This is an amazing tip! I use TTS quite a lot for checking
| certain accessibility issues, never once thought to use it
| for my own writing.
| queuebert wrote:
| That is a pretty low effort list.
|
| I have read dozens and dozens of books on writing, and for non-
| fiction nothing beats Writing with Style by Trimble.
| pdm55 wrote:
| Walter Mosley made an interesting observation about the writing
| process. When he rereads his first draft of a novel, he notes the
| places where the words go awry: where something is amiss; where a
| character seems shallow, poorly developed. (I'm just recalling
| this from memory.) Mosely simply notes those spots in the novel.
| And keeps reading. Right to the end. He says he finds that when
| he fixes those sections, that's when the writing starts to
| sparkle.
|
| The book I read was Mosley, "This is the Year You Write Your
| Novel".
|
| I guess his message is to not be aggrieved when one's writing
| seems like sh*t. That observation might be the start of a good
| piece of writing.
|
| Alternatively there's the quip of Oscar Wilde: "I was working on
| the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a
| comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."
| skilled wrote:
| There's no such thing as _better writer_. You either have passion
| and then use inspiration to fuel that passion or you don 't. Not
| everyone is privileged to have higher-education or have the
| ability to learn the entire Oxford dictionary.
|
| I've worked with editors at Fast Company, Entrepreneur,
| TheNextWeb and others, and I have not _ever_ tried to read a book
| to make myself a better writer. What does that even mean?
|
| And on numerous occasions I have gotten away with submitting
| first drafts that get published "as is" without anyone telling me
| otherwise. Am I some omnipotent writer, or were the editors
| incompetent? I doubt it.
|
| I think what a lot of people also don't understand about writing
| is that some of the best work out there (articles, books, etc.),
| for the person who put it out - it can be compared to having
| participated in a triathlon because it has THAT immense of an
| effect on your mental state of being.
|
| Want to be a better writer? Find out what your passion is and
| write about that. No book and no order of semicolons is going to
| make you "better" unless what you write about is what lights the
| fire underneath your feet.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| > Not everyone is privileged to have higher-education or have
| the ability to learn the entire Oxford dictionary.
|
| That you bring up education and vocabulary suggests that you
| _do_ think there 's such a thing as better writers. One obvious
| example: compare a given three-year-old to you. You are almost
| certainly a better writer. Compare _you_ at three years old to
| today. Same story.
|
| Sure, you may be right that passion is required. But why
| dismiss skill?
| skilled wrote:
| Exactly, I am talking about _skill_ and the use of words as a
| means to add flare to a story, but it does not make you
| _better_. Just because you can translate a black and white
| story (which conveys the message /lesson) using all the
| colors of a rainbow does not make you better.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Do you mean "flair"?
|
| You're right that people can disagree about what to value,
| but I'd think that given a set of values, maximizing them
| is better than not. If you're a writer who does care about
| using all the colors of a rainbow, doesn't learning how to
| use indigo and orange make you _better_ than when you only
| knew black, white, red, and green?
| dasil003 wrote:
| > _Want to be a better writer? Find out what your passion is
| and write about that. No book and no order of semicolons is
| going to make you "better" unless what you write about is what
| lights the fire underneath your feet._
|
| That's fine if your goal is to become a Writer. However if
| writing is just the means to the end of communicating an idea
| or persuading an audience, then it may not be possible to align
| your passion. That doesn't make improving your technique any
| less important or achievable though.
| skilled wrote:
| Yes, and that what's I'm arguing. There should be a
| distinction whenever a title such as "read this to become
| better" is presented, especially for writing.
|
| There's no consideration for the absolute basic level of
| entry to writing, and it imposes on the person an unrealistic
| perspective which may lead that person on a meaningless
| journey on "becoming" something that they are inherently not
| able to become.
|
| Hence me mentioning higher education. I'm well aware of
| people who are absolute artists with words, but that same
| story can be said/explained in practical ways.
|
| Perhaps I should have made that clearer.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| It seems like you're using a different definition of
| "better" than the article author or most of the people
| responding to your comment. You seem to treat things as a
| binary - as though the headline is only justified if it can
| take a non-writer and turn them into a writer. And in that
| light, your criticism makes sense: reading an article isn't
| going to do the job without passion and a certain latent
| capability.
|
| But I'd suggest that others mean "better" in the _relative_
| sense of "greater than" or "more" and mean it to refer to
| skill or dexterity of a sort. If someone has a certain
| degree of skill or dexterity - the degree that makes them a
| member of the article's target audience - then, the author
| is claiming, they can increase their skill by engaging with
| the recommended material. And I'm curious whether you
| disagree with _that_ position.
|
| If you agree with it, this might just be a case where
| people are talking past each other based on different
| definitions, despite agreeing about the substance of the
| article.
| copperx wrote:
| Thank you. I'm not a writer, but there's an undeniable urge to
| communicate when I feel excited about something, especially
| when I have synthesized new knowledge. I suspect this urge is
| universal.
|
| That being said, achieving clarity often requires tremendous
| effort.
| greymalik wrote:
| > There's no such thing as better writer
|
| If someone hones their craft such that they become more
| effective at articulating their thoughts, at making their
| argument more persuasive, at moving their audience, at reaching
| more people, wouldn't we say that they've become a better
| writer than they used to be?
| skilled wrote:
| I'd call those people marketers.
| unlaxedneurotic wrote:
| Say there are two people with same understanding of a
| nuanced argument. One fails to articulate that argument in
| a written form such that the reader is able to understand
| it. The other is successful in doing that. I'll say the
| second person is a better writer. No marketing involved.
| awinter-py wrote:
| what to write to become a better writer
| harrylove wrote:
| [insert Sean Bean "One does not simply read to become..." meme]
|
| I don't make a living as a writer but writing has made my living.
| Here's my advice to improve as a writer in general, not as a
| writer of a specific genre or purpose, and not to improve a
| specific piece of writing.
|
| 0. All advice needs salt.
|
| 1. Recognize that all writing is personal and all reading is
| subjective. No one has a perfect lens. Be willing to be wrong.
| Even if you're right, guaranteed someone else thinks you're
| wrong.
|
| 2. Are you writing to be authentic or writing to be popular?
| Writing to persuade or to inspire? To amuse or confront? All of
| those may be in conflict at times. Recognize and accept the
| conflict, then make your choices in peace. See rule #1.
|
| 3. Everyone loves simple language.
|
| 4. But try not to be bland. This is the value of rhythm, voice,
| word choice, tropes and schemes, idioms, patterns, and so on.
|
| 5. There really is something to copying other people's writing as
| a way of finding your own writing voice. So you need to read
| widely to find people worth copying. In general, avoid the angry
| advice writers.
|
| 6. Practice. Click the Publish button once in a while. You don't
| end up pitching for the Yankees by reading about baseball.
|
| 7. Writing is pretty fantastic, isn't it?
|
| 8. Language evolves. Just like foxes and toaster ovens. Accept
| it. Thank people for their critique of your apparent misuse of
| language and then please continue challenging the rules.
|
| 9.
|
| 10. Leave something to the imagination. Think of it like an
| offering to the gods.
|
| 11. No one cares about your writing as much as you do. See rule
| #1.
| adamisom wrote:
| Damn good writing.
| roland35 wrote:
| What's rule #9?!? I need to know!
| stanislavb wrote:
| Thank you!
| darkteflon wrote:
| Superb.
| sverona wrote:
| Vernacular Eloquence by Peter Elbow is my go-to.
| dnc wrote:
| An essay on writing by Raymond Carver [1] (as well as pretty much
| anything by Raymond Carver and authors he mentions in the essay
| :)). It's about good fiction writing, but, I think, good to keep
| in mind for writing in general.
|
| [1] https://bryanafern.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/on-writing-
| ra...
| notjulianjaynes wrote:
| No discussion of Carver is complete without mentioning his
| relationship with editor Gordon Lish.
|
| >Carver had been up all night reviewing Lish's severe editorial
| cuts--two stories had been slashed by nearly seventy per cent,
| many by almost half; many descriptions and digressions were
| gone; endings had been truncated or rewritten--and he was
| unnerved to the point of desperation.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220617140639/http://www.newyor...
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