Is is matter of writing style what makes a submission successful? Content? What do most HN readers want to see here? Personal stories? Technical articles? Good writing takes time and a lot of deliberate practice, and I'm trying. I know a few of my posts are at least "somewhat interesting" as they have caught the eye of some companies, which provided me some work as a freelance, but I've never yet been able to post a blockbuster post. My blog: http://atrilla.net/
I think it's a mistake to aim for most readers. Aim for a segment that is similar to you, and write about what interests you.<p>Build a cool little OS X utility? I use Linux, so I probably don't care, but there are plenty of people who will.<p>Interested in a discussion on a topic? Find an article about it, or write a blog post with your own ideas, and post it.<p>Stop trying to target people. Write about what interests you. Hell, write up a whole bunch of different things, post them at the same time, and see what does best, then report back on which caused the most click throughs, which had the most discussion etc, if that's what interests you.