4 ms·
The power of an outline when writing. Over the past few years, I've been teaching myself how to write better. I'm not talking about elementary syntax or gramma
by itsmemattchung 4y ago
The power of an outline when writing.
Over the past few years, I've been teaching myself how to write better. I'm not talking about elementary syntax or grammar. I'm not talking about writing the traditional, American English five paragraph essay. I'm talking about writing longer pieces of prose, articles or blog posts or short chapters with word counts ranging anywhere between 1500-3000 words. On this journey of improving the craft, I realized that one of my biggest struggles was writing cohesively. Although I've been able to get lots of words on (digital) paper, eventually I'd get lost in my own web of thoughts, the article itself totally incoherent, no structure, no organization.
Constructing outlines and reverse outlines[0] has helped me tremendously. It's not easy ... but the concept itself is finally — years later — starting to click.
[0] - https://explorationsofstyle.com/2011/02/09/reverse-outlines/ https://explorationsofstyle.com/2011/02/09/reverse-outlines/
- catears 4y agoThis summer I read "On Writing Well" by William Zissner which was an eye opener for me. I'm far from an expert in writing clear texts, but I am definitely noticing more text which are just... big balls of blurb that don't actually say anything. All because of that book. It sounds dumb, but this year it clicked for me how big of a difference a poorly written text compares to a well written text. Hope your training pays off, itsmemattchung!
- luuuzeta 4y agoZinsser's "On Writing Well" is one of my favorite books, I like how clear and concise its prose is. I got Joseph M. William's "Style: Toward Clarity and Grace" recommended [1] so you might be interested in it. I read the introduction (I'm planning to read it this year) and with the few examples the author presents it sells the idea that prose doesn't need to be utterly complex to communicate ideas and concepts succinctly and clearly. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33601492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33601492
- grantc 4y agoThis is the first book I recommend to anyone who wants to improve their writing. With Minto's Pyramid Principle as a follow-on. My top 3: 1/ Edit ruthlessly. Every single word is reduced to its simplest form and pulls its weight--it has a damn good reason for being there. 2/ Aspire to write at a third-grade reading level. Readers prefer simple writing even when reading deeply technical content. 3/ Start your most important conclusions up front, not at the end. You're not writing The Sixth Sense. Do your reader a favor and tell them the big reveal first. You can then follow through and persuade the reader why your conclusions are right.
- urthor 4y agoBottom Line Up Front and "Anything worth reading is 10% of the first draft," are the two hardest procedural skills in writing. It's just so much experience to avoid those mistakes.
- cookie_monsta 4y agoI love a good outline and can't really imagine writing anything above 1000 words without one. Getting the outline into shape really feels like breaking the back of any piece - after that it's just filling in the gaps. Something I realised much too late was how delaying the move to the keyboard was a useful strategy. Now I mostly start with pen and paper, sometimes with a mind map if I really need to organise my thoughts, and only hit the PC once I have a pretty firm idea of what I'm going to say. I've even done first drafts in longhand, which feels like double handling at first, but there's something about that added filter of transposing from paper to computer that helps you reassess objectively what it is that you're writing.
- binarymax 4y agoI also love and need outlines. It’s carried forward in not just writing, but making great presentations, plans, and decision making. Also, obligatory RiffTrax on outlines: https://youtu.be/yfcyVtD8-Dk https://youtu.be/yfcyVtD8-Dk
- itsmemattchung 4y agoThanks for sharing this!!! I know that the video clip itself is supposed to be satirical, but I actually found it quite useful. I loved it and watch all 10 minutes of it. Out of curiosity, in the skit, do you know which book the actor is reading? In the skit, at the top of the page, the book is titled: "Making outlines and summaries"[0]. [0] Fast forwarded to specific time: https://youtu.be/yfcyVtD8-Dk?t=129 https://youtu.be/yfcyVtD8-Dk?t=129
- binarymax 4y agoYeah it’s great! A couple seconds before yours, he has an index card with the title “Directing Learning 371.3” A quick search yields the title: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL7389387W/Directing_learning https://openlibrary.org/works/OL7389387W/Directing_learning But I was unable to find a physical or digital copy available. Good luck!
- itsmemattchung 4y agoI just purchased a physical copy of the book! In case anyone wants to purchase it too, there's one left I found over at abesbooks: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=20723521312&searchurl=ds%3D20%26kn%3DDirecting%2BLearning%2BFrederick%252C%2BRobert%2BW.%253B%2BRagsdale%252C%2BClarence%2BE.%253B%2BSalisbury%252C%2BRachel%26sortby%3D17&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title1 https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=2072352131...
- bitwize 4y agoUsing org-mode's powerful outlining functionality has done wonders for my writing. I can ramble on and on and on, then use headings and subheadings to create conceptual "bins" and move chunks of my prose into the bins depending on topic, then smooth my words over with more transitional language so the thoughts flow more naturally.
- ianai 4y agoI’ve straight up had to write essays in Excel before to break writers block. Absolute writing by outline.
- itsmemattchung 4y agoI'd be interested in seeing an example of your writing process, using Excel as a way to break writer's block.
- ianai 4y agoThis was decades ago. But basically take which ever paragraph format intended and break it out into individual cells. So label one cell “thesis” then “point 1” etc. Then string them together in output. It was probably after being up all day and night to help explain the need for that. It did help identify points that needed reinforcement though, “I think.”
- minhmeoke 4y agoIt might also be a good idea to distill transient notes down into evergreen notes to refine and review knowledge: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes This is a great way to refine your ideas before you write and makes it easier to develop the outline as an assembly of different notes that you already have. An Executable Strategy for Writing: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z3PBVkZ2SvsAgFXkjHsycBeyS6Cw1QXf7kcD8 https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z3PBVkZ2SvsAgFXkjHsycBeyS6Cw... The main insights for me were: - Using notes as a way to organize one's writing (by assembling ideas together into an outline, then filling out the details) to avoid writer's block. - Creating "logs" around concepts that extract useful ideas from ephemeral observations and distill concrete insights over time. - Using an "inbox" of new ideas as a way to focus attention and perform spaced repetition of concepts. - Organizing notes via tags, backlinks, and associations/outlines rather than as a hierarchy. - Incrementally iterating on atomic concept notes to form larger chunks in memory which allows thinking about more complex ideas and recognizing patterns.
- itsmemattchung 4y agoWhile I still do create "atomic notes" in my slip box and approach writing using a bottom up approach advocated by Zettelkaten professionals and enthusiasts, I no longer exclusively use this technique. I approach my writing not only bottom up, but top down. For me, the problem is—and has always been—with atomic notes is while its easy to create little, bite-sized notes, the problem (again: for me) that I accumulate a pile of notes, independent notes that have no connections to one another: no coherent web of thoughts.