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As part of my job, I edit a lot of writing by other devs. Rarely, if ever, is their work "too concise".
My #1 tip for engineers who want to become better writers:
Write fewer words, more frequently.
Thread ->
My #1 tip for engineers who want to become better writers:
Write fewer words, more frequently.
Thread ->
The most common mistake I see from new writers is long paragraphs with a high word-to-idea ratio.
"If I& #39;d had more time, I& #39;d have written a shorter letter" isn& #39;t just an old joke.
Contrary to what you may believe, you don& #39;t have "nothing to say". You probably have too much.
"If I& #39;d had more time, I& #39;d have written a shorter letter" isn& #39;t just an old joke.
Contrary to what you may believe, you don& #39;t have "nothing to say". You probably have too much.
If you took an essay-writing class in school, you learned about topic sentences. I spend probably 30-40% of my total time on a blog post composing the topic sentence, which doubles as the headline.
You want your piece of writing to be about one thing, simple enough to be identified in a few words. "How I built a serverless weather vane" is a great topic. "How I built a weather vane and learned I hate JavaScript" is two topics squashed into one.
Research shows that most people take away a max of one key idea from a blog post, no matter how long it is. The longer and wordier your piece, the less likely readers are to encounter that idea. So you have to distill. You want that key idea in your headline.
Example: this blog has been fairly influential (around 20k views, a spin-off talk, some great follow-up discussions) since I published it in January. It took me about 2hrs to write the post, but several days to compose the core takeaway. https://cloudirregular.substack.com/p/code-wise-cloud-foolish">https://cloudirregular.substack.com/p/code-wi...
I find that by the time I get to a well-scoped topic sentence (something I can explain in 1-2k words), I& #39;ve often considered and discarded several lesser versions of the blog without having to write them. As with code, an hour of planning can save you days of implementation.
When you can express your topic concisely, flesh it out with short paragraphs (just a few sentences each) that explain your thinking in simple words. If you find yourself wandering off on a tangent, save that thought in a separate place. It belongs in your next post.
Yes, the mechanics of sentence construction are important. See Strunk & White, Stephen King& #39;s "On Writing", etc. But many of their tips -- minimize adverbs, use active voice -- are ultimately about being concise.
Artificial constraints help. A hack: try pasting the bite-size ideas from your blog, one by one, into Twitter (the "compose thread" feature is great for this.) If the bite won& #39;t fit into 240 characters, reword and trim until it does. You& #39;ll find you don& #39;t miss what you cut.
"But Paul Graham / Ben Thompson / whoever writes long complex posts full of many ideas." You& #39;re not them, you& #39;re you. And you& #39;re new. Start small, build confidence, and you& #39;ll get there.
Now you have to do this over and over again until you get the hang of it - that& #39;s the "more frequently" part.
But to leave you with a word of encouragement...
But to leave you with a word of encouragement...
I have yet to see a technical practitioner write something from their expertise that didn& #39;t contain helpful ideas worth publishing.
You can do this. You have value to share.
Get out of the way of your own ideas, and they will shine.
You can do this. You have value to share.
Get out of the way of your own ideas, and they will shine.
