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Some thoughts on writing
- benhoyt 5y agoI kind of understand why HN strips the "How" prefix off titles, but I think this one needs it: "How I think about writing" is very different from "I think about writing".
- SLWW 5y agoI can't see it. There are so many "How ..." statements that it doesn't make sense.
- ibraheemdev 5y agoI believe if you resubmit with "How" re-added, it keeps it.
- benhoyt 5y agoYeah, I believe so -- the OP would need to do this, though (and it's probably outside of the edit window now).
- dang 5y agoI'm not sure they're so different, and in any case (unless the article was changed, which is possible) it's not what the article actually says. I've updated the title now.
- da39a3ee 5y agoIf this article is giving writing advice I find that somewhat ironic, since it does nothing whatsoever in the early sentences to make me want to read it or indeed have the faintest idea what its subject or aims are.
- benhoyt 5y agoThat's odd: personally, I was drawn in. And the first two paragraphs convey its subject and aims pretty explicitly, don't they?
- da39a3ee 5y agoSeems like several others here felt the same way as me, and this isn't a long comment thread: > This might be the most boring thing ever written about writing. > The problem is (imo) that he's writing for himself and not an audience. It reads like a stream-of-consciousness journal entry, not a thoughtful attempt at relaying information to another mind. A good start would be learning to self-edit; the length could be cut significantly with no real loss of content. > There isn't much more to this article than an author clarifying for himself how he thinks about things. He succeeds at that, sure, and is better off for it, but it's dreary for the rest of us!
- barry-cotter 5y agoAnd that's fine. You hate his writing (style) so you don't read it. Others feel differently, enough that he has many, many readers. Clearly there's room for many different styles of writing to find an audience.
- spekcular 5y agoAlso: This website desperately needs to limit the number of characters per line instead of just going to the side of the screen and wrapping. It's an abomination on a widescreen monitor.
- benhoyt 5y agoI agree that it'd be easier to read with wrapping, though "abomination" is rather too strong. You can just click "reader mode" in your browser, or size the window down to something readable.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- foxbarrington 5y agoAgreed. I love many of the articles, but I always have to use Firefox's reader view.
- lmm 5y agoNo it doesn't. I like having my text be wide thank you very much. If you want it to be narrow, can't you just make your browser narrow?
- spekcular 5y agoI like my text wide too. I think the usual advice of 80–100 characters per line is much too conservative. But as one wide text lover to another: this is clearly beyond the bounds of good taste. Regarding your second question, I don't feel I should be responsible for fixing the formatting mistakes of other people's websites.
- lmm 5y ago> as one wide text lover to another: this is clearly beyond the bounds of good taste. I disagree. I like it as it is. Maybe a small amount of margin (HN-style) would help, but I certainly wouldn't want to see it introduce a maximum width. > Regarding your second question, I don't feel I should be responsible for fixing the formatting mistakes of other people's websites. I think websites should be created ready to be reflowed at the user's convenience - that's the whole point of using HTML over things like PDF. If the user wants a particular max-width, they should have their user agent apply it. Whereas if the website makes its own choice of max-width, it's virtually impossible for the user to "undo" that. (I did try setting "body max-width: undefined !important" in Stylish for a while, but that breaks too many pages)
- mountaineer 5y agoFor some context, the likely reason that this is on the front page is that most of his essays, which are many, do very well on HN[1]. If you consider that body of work, this may be a more interesting insight into writing to explore. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=danluu.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=danluu.com
- mattowen_uk 5y ago[Off-topic] His aversion to employing a max-width CSS[1] on his site make it really difficult for those of us with any level of dyspraxia/dyslexia to actually read it. I shouldn't have to resize my browser window because of his stubbornness[2]. --- [1] A simple: body {max-width: 60em; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} would fix it. [2] I also shouldn't have to install an extension. Books are [mainly] a standard size for a reason.
- mattowen_uk 5y agoMy other comment here is flagged. Really?! If you don't agree with what I say, be polite and state why. If that's still to much of a bother, vote me down and move on... But flagging?! c'mon.
- helmholtz 5y agoYep, that "representative" Paul Graham snippet does capture him wonderfully; a bloated windbag, more tolerable than ESR only by virtue of not having any oral sex tips on his website, but with just as many references to the "hacker" life and plenty of gatekeeping alike. Is there a cult of personality thing on HN? Just because it's Dan Luu with his fashionably-ugly website, or it's Paul Graham soothing the fevered brows of yearning youthful techbros, that it must get voted to the front page? There isn't much more to this article than an author clarifying for himself how he thinks about things. He succeeds at that, sure, and is better off for it, but it's dreary for the rest of us! He even says that himself!
- dang 5y agoPlease don't fulminate or sneer on HN. It's against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - because it is destructive of the kind of culture we're hoping for here. That goes regardless of who you're fulminating against or sneering at. Perhaps you don't feel you owe those targets better, but you definitely owe this community better if you're participating in it.
- Swizec 5y agoThe best way to learn about writing is to: 1. Read a copy of On Writing by Stephen King 2. Write a lot 3. No, more than that And always get feedback from your target audience. Publish, share, see what happens, adapt.
- sweuder 5y agoOn Writing I found to be very specialized for the fiction writer (not surprisingly given King's body of work). Not incredibly relevant to the non-fiction blogger IMO. Still a good book overall though, don't get my wrong.
- twobitshifter 5y agoI haven’t read the King book, but On Writing Well by Zinser is generally recommended for a non fiction audience, and I find it really helpful. It’s short enough that it can be reread and it puts me in the right headspace for technical writing.
- petecooper 5y agoFor anyone (like me) looking: On Writing Well by William Zinsser.
- jean_valje4n 5y ago4. Read a lot. I've found reading lots, especially from revered authors from all nationalities, Steinbeck and Doestovsky I hold in great esteem, has had a great impact on my writing style. I suppose we all try to emulate those we hold in esteem, and I think reading a lot from authors we like, can have a great influence in our ability to convey meaning through words.
- pkrumins 5y agoDan Luu's blog is great and we all love it BUT CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TEACH THIS MAN CSS?
- dang 5y ago"Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- coldtea 5y agoNah, we just need to get you to learn to adjust your browser window size and/or font size.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- chamakits 5y agoI completely understand this reaction, as I also feel... weird at first whenever I see his site. Specifically I always feel I'd like to have space on the sides. Having said that.... I frequently read his posts, and don't find his lack of space on the sides (or any other lack of style) prevents me from reading his blog posts. Is there any specific reason why we feel this 'weirdness' from the lack of style beyond a built in expectation we all have about styling that we've seen in other sites?
- clavicat 5y agoThis might be the most boring thing ever written about writing. The English language is a linguistic miracle, a beautiful acrobatic freakshow--and this is what you do with it? If I wanted more of this prose, I would just read Wikipedia. There's no daring, irony, or personality in it. Like the website itself, it's austere to the point of sterility. >The "improve writing" goal is because I found my writing annoyingly awkward and wanted to fix that. I frequently wrote sentences or paragraphs that seemed clunky to me, like when you misspell a word and it looks wrong no matter how you try re-spelling it. That's because your writing is so pedantically subdued that it doesn't resemble the ways that humans actually communicate.
- spekcular 5y agoThe problem is (imo) that he's writing for himself and not an audience. It reads like a stream-of-consciousness journal entry, not a thoughtful attempt at relaying information to another mind. A good start would be learning to self-edit; the length could be cut significantly with no real loss of content. What's particularly aggravating is that he knows, more or less, what clear, concise writing is (cf. his discussion of "classic style") and goes out of his way to not write like that. Yes, I read his justification. No, it's not good. Someone is going to chime in by saying that I must be wrong because his articles frequently reach the HN frontpage. But correlation is not causation. The actual information content is generally really good – that's why they're popular. But they'd be even better with more attention to the mechanics of writing.
- olau 5y agoConcise writing sometimes cut away important information that cannot be conveyed in a concise manner. It's like a sonata where we have a favourite part. Why don't we just play that part? This is not an argument against editing or improving the information density.
- paulpauper 5y agoConcise writing does not go viral like long writing does. I have observed that longer articles have more success even if few people read them in their entirety. Slate Star Codex articles are often long and go viral.
- uwagar 5y agoits actually typing, not writing anymore.
- paulpauper 5y agoI have tried every tip/advice under the sun and cannot say any of them have worked. Writing is subjective. What works for one author will not work for another. I think the audience and name recognition matters more than specific tips or strategies..
- ketzo 5y agoThis is essentially the entire point of the linked post.
- hardwaregeek 5y agoIt's interesting, I wouldn't have described Dan's writing vs Paul Graham's writing in that manner. Dan tends to be rather affect-less, with a very neutral, almost scientific tone. I agree that PG is more authoritative but there's also this contrarian, almost Pauline Kael-esque quality to his writing. Phrases like "Nerds don't care about glamour, so to them the appeal of New York is a mystery." aren't just authoritative, they're provocative and almost purposefully insulting. I'm a little surprised that Dan wrote this otherwise very nice post on writing and didn't mention the counterbalance to writing: reading. If you want to write, read a lot. My writing owes a lot to writers such as James Baldwin, Robert Caro, Calvin Trillin, etc. Specifically, read published works. I love reading a blog post as much as anyone else but there is a marked difference in quality between a blog post and a book or a high quality newspaper article. One could argue that reading leads to aping but I disagree that aping is necessarily bad. Experts do not always have good ideas on how to teach because they understand the deep, universal theory and therefore think that everybody should learn from the deep, universal theory. In truth, beginners can't and won't learn deep theory. You have to start with imitating your tennis instructor's serve and then move onto the underlying concept of how a serve works. Complaining that beginners don't know the underlying theory and are just imitating is essentially complaining that beginners are beginners. Plus mimicry is a good way to learn. When I fenced, I remember that some fencers would mimic famous fencers as a joke. But it really did help them find their own style by letting them play with the different styles and think outside their own conventions. Thus my advice: read a lot of books; imitate as much as you like; and write a lot.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago"Thus my advice: read a lot of books; imitate as much as you like; and write a lot." Live life too. Experience how the others live. Always write from the heart. In all honestly, I don't feel wealthy men can write well. Strike that last sentance. They can churn out sentences, but they are not interesting. We suffer through their writing becacuse they are wealthy. We feel they must have something inciteful to say because we equate wealth with talent. I think every wealthy writer knows their best work was done when they were comming up, and almost always when they were poor, and struggling. I can honestly say the only perk of being poor is you will be a good writer of you take the time to write something, or better than the wealthy man on his best day. (I don't feel like a debate. It's just my opinion. And I'm sure you will find good writers that are financially well off, but they wern't always wealthy.)
- ainiriand 5y agoThey probably should get some advice on styling though. This site is hard to read in a wide screen and I have to resize the viewport. Not extremely problematic but definitely something to consider when having these 'ultra bare-bones' sites with no clear style.
- olau 5y agoDan, if you're reading this - you could try something like body { margin: 0 auto; max-width: 50em; } Although I must confess that I'm personally enjoying the quirky long lines in your writing.
- 331c8c71 5y agoLooks perfect on mobile though (to me).
- Ma8ee 5y agoThe advantage is that I can easily choose how long lines I want, while the window doesn't take up any unnecessary real estate.
- ainiriand 5y agoHow do you do that? Resizing the window? If I have to resize the window then it will resize other tabs. If I need to put this in a different tab then it is kind of a hassle for a site that does not look that welcoming to me. Probably there are some middle ground here.
- Ma8ee 5y agoI just resize the window when I start reading. And when I close the tab to read something else I resize the window again to fit that content. Now when I've made aware of it, I realise I do it all the time without thinking.
- crackercrews 5y agoDo people who write immerse themselves in other authors' work immediately prior to writing? I've thought this would be a good way to get in a rhythm. I've also wondered if writers have lists of nifty words or phrases that they want to use. Or do these words just occur to them midstream?
- theguppydream 5y agoThe story goes that Hunter S Thompson typed out the Great Gatsby to get the flow of the writing. Quite a different approach to his infamous daily routine.
- dhosek 5y agoIt varies. I have some writer friends (successful as in multiple books of fiction published, creative writing university teaching gigs, etc.) who don't read at all while they're writing others who do the opposite. I, personally, am always writing something and always reading something. I do need to be careful at times because there are writers with really strong voices who can overpower mine if I'm not conscientious (Kurt Vonnegut and J. D. Salinger have had that effect in the past). I do keep lists of words and phrases, largely things that it occurs to me that this is the way to describe something I've been having trouble describing, but most of the time I'll keep working at a sentence until it says what I want the way I want it to. But reading is absolutely essential, and reading to really understand the mechanics of how something works. Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer is a good introduction to how to do this.
- fullstackchris 5y agoAll this analysis and commentary and he can't see the forest from the trees. He breaks one of the most important rules in writing: when using an uncommon acronym, in this case "RC", one should _always_ provide the full name for it first before using the acronym, i.e. in this case writing "Recourse (RC)", then one can continue to use the acronym. I shouldn't have to click RC to figure out what it is. Infuriating.
- gnubison 5y agoIs this really your only takeaway? I agree, defining the acronym would be nice, but certainly it’s not infuriating.
- LordAtlas 5y agoI would have tried to read this but the 1994 styling of the page made it impossible. Long lines on my laptop, no margins, tiny font size. All of which can be fixed with a few lines of CSS.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- throwaway3b03 5y agoResize the window to obtain shorter lines, you can adjust text size from within the browser (ctrl & '+'), or edit the css yourself with the developer tools. I personally find the presentation clean and simple. Perfect for focusing on the content. Much better than most of the css&js loaded sites out there that restrict you a lot more.