I've been writing for several years, and the more I blog, write training materials, or just write to customers, three things keep helping me improve:<p>1) Less is more.
A) Write all you like, and then cut out all the stuff that doesn't matter. Like the way you just said the same thing 3 times in a row.
B) The less you <i>say</i> the less someone has to argue with. The opposite is also true
C) Stick to main points and save gory details for later, unless you're in the "Gory Details" section already.<p>2) Read your writing out loud. What looks great on the page might sound terrible aloud. If it sounds terrible aloud, then it'll be awkward for others to read, too.<p>3) Just write. Get the words onto the page. This is the hardest but most important thing. Don't pay attention to form, redundancy, spelling, grammar, or redundancy. Just get the words down. These so-called brain dumps will help you get expressive. Then you can edit the heck out of yourself as mentioned in 1 and 2.<p>4) Okay, a fourth. No matter what you write, read Steven King's "On Writing" to find out what it means to "kill your darlings". Epic book.
Definitely these two:<p>1. Good writing is clear
4. Good writing is concise<p>Use a simple, reduced vocabulary, as your readers are likely to have English as a second language (e.g. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-44569277" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-44569277</a>). And as Richard Feynman pointed out, try explaining it to a child. If you can't go back and rewrite it.<p>Don't use (modern) slang, and avoid writing 'conversational' English.<p>It's "lessons" not "learnings". How much have you eaten? How many eatings have you had? Ugh.<p>Don't use 'ping' or 'reach out' (you're not the Four Tops).<p>And what on earth is "welp/whelp" that people have started using in the last couple of years? It's "well, for one thing..."
Hi everyone, OP here. Writing has always been a struggle for me. I just started to post consistently on this blog two weeks ago. Didn't expect this to get to the front page of HN. I hope you guys find it helpful. I'd appreciate any feedback or comment on the post!<p>P.S: Fixed all the grammatical errors in the post.
Regarding rule two, cohesion, I remember being struck by the writing in this <i>New Yorker</i> piece from 2011 on the subject of Rwandan bicycle racers. This goes beyond good writing. The writer didn't merely begin his sentences with what he had just said or with what he could count on being familiar to the reader. I noticed that the writer would take a paragraph and somehow manage to raise a question in my mind, and then in the next paragraph he would answer that question. This happened over and over.<p>Give it a read!<p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/07/11/climbers-philip-gourevitch" rel="nofollow">https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/07/11/climbers-phili...</a>
Readers might also enjoy <i>You Might as Well Be a Great Copy Editor</i>. <a href="https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1471" rel="nofollow">https://blog.regehr.org/archives/1471</a><p>Discussed 4 months ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23631027" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23631027</a>
As a non native english-speaker, my struggles in my original language is finishing sentences early instead doing long ones. Sometimes I write long phrases, full of commas, semicolons, etc. I found that in enlish people tend to be more conservative when writing sentences.
> “Regular patterns of drought and precipitation have been found to coincide with cycles of sunspot activity”<p>> which can be simplified to:<p>> “Regular patterns of drought and precipitation coincide with cycles of sunspot activity”<p>> Not only the phrase “have been found” adds nothing to the prose, it also does not state the subject. Removing the phrase will make the prose above more concise.<p>This, and by leaving out the weasly "have been found" you take ownership of the statement, which forces you to be more careful and critical when citing other people's results.
I love youtube, but so many videos would be improved if a little writing was done before hand, and then the video edited to a script.<p>This is a good essay by Orwell, that's related.<p>"Politics and the English Language"<p><a href="https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/" rel="nofollow">https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_poli...</a>
To me, the hardest part of writing is getting the first draft done. I'm a good enough self critic to do a reasonable job of editing, but the writer's block is real and awful.<p>The standard advice is to silence the internal critic and write. Of course, it's easier said than done.<p>I'm supposed to be writing a paper. I'm commenting on HN instead.
Good post. There is one important topic not touched upon yet: clear structure. Without a strong organising structure and logic, it’s hard to navigate, especially for non-prose. I can highly recommend the book “The pyramid principle” as a way to really improve structured writing.
Quick Summary:<p>* Good writing tells a story. Use characters and actions.<p>* String together cohesive prose using consistent topic strings at the beginning of a sentence.<p>* Put emphasis of new ideas at the end of the sentence.<p>* Be concise and with fewer words. Unnecessary to state with reader can infer.
From the article title: "How to Write Well...". Surely instead "How to Write Effectively..."?<p>Aside from that, I understand the OP’s pain in learning how to write. My initiation by fire in the craft of writing was when I supervised my first PhD. It was like like the labours of Sisyphus.<p>One principle I can add to the list of principles that is evolving here, if you think your book/thesis is finished, it probably isn’t. That is why God gave us Editors. Notice I have capitalized both God and Editors.
> A story has two components – characters and actions.<p>Three components... the third is A POINT.<p>Unless the path of the story's narrative promises to lead somewhere, the reader loses interest and stops reading.
Some good tips, but I read the section on nominalisation three times and I can't for the life of me tell you what nominalisation means or how to apply it (or not).<p>However, it piqued my interest in the concept, and this article helped me get a little closer: <a href="https://unilearning.uow.edu.au/academic/3b.html" rel="nofollow">https://unilearning.uow.edu.au/academic/3b.html</a>
This is clear writing?<p>2. Because we know nothing about the local conditions, we could not determine how effectively the committee had allocated funds to areas that need the most assistance.<p>We can't tell if the committee spent wisely because we don't know our way around here.