Jan Meppe

Machine learning engineer in love with building digital products.

4 minute read

Writing is difficult, but I can make it a bit easier for you.

I have read a lot of books on writing (and how to produce good writing) and they all say the same things just paraphrased differently.

The three key points can be summarized as follows (and they are actually really good points):

  1. Divide your writing into little chunks: People are not lazy, they are just very efficient. Ensure that people can skim and scan your work easily. Make sure that they get a dopamine hit after every sentence and paragraph.
  2. Know what you want to say: Know what you want to say and the structure in which you want to say it. Lampshade and structure your arguments (like this list of one, two three, that I’m using here)
  3. Make its expression fun/sexy/compelling: Finally, make it fun and interesting to read. Use active language and simple words, but also provide new insights and ideas. Manage the rate at which you reveal your ideas to your readers. Keep them engaged at the right level by giving micro-rewards at the right time.

You can stop here if you want. The rest of the blog are these three points just…more of it.

Step 1. Divide things into small chunks

Nobody likes to read a wall of text.

Whatever you write, break it up into smaller chunks. Headings, subheadings, paragraphs, linebreaks. Whatever you are writing, break it up so that people have a micro-reward after reading each paragraph.

“People are much happier reading a long thing if they can be tricked into reading it as a series of short things.”

Step 2. Keep the flow of ideas strong

Know what you want to say

When you write you want to tell something to someone. Make sure that you actually know what that something is. I call this “knowing what you want to say”. Slate Star Codex calls this “keeping the flow of ideas strong”. Another book I read calls this “managing the rate of revelation”.

Anyway, whatever it is, know what you want to say and the structure in which you want to say it. You want to tell this, this, and this. Know the form in which you want to say it. The listicle here is the most obvious form because it is a linear sequence of things. But there are alternatives for lampshading. Use words to provide structure like first, second, third, etc.

Some subtips to figure out what you want to say:

  1. Write down what you want to say and reflect: What helps me is writing down what I want to say, then writing something, and then reflecting on that. Is what I wrote an accurate reflection of what I wanted to say? Writing it down helps a lot.
  2. Write the best possible version: What would the single best possible version of whatever it is that you are writing look like? How did you do? What makes yours special? How can you make yours more special?

Step 3. Make it fun/sexy/compelling

Now make it compelling

You know what to say. You have a strong flow of ideas. Now break the flow! Make it sexy, interesting, informative, scary. Add images, quotes, links, gifs, whatever. Break it up! Make it sexy. Make it compelling. Add some sex, kill someone, kill your darlings. One book I read calls this “making its expression fun”. The Slate Star Codex calls this “variety is the spice of life”, I call it: “making it fun/sexy/compelling”. Your piece should be fun to read, otherwise why bother?! This is basically good writing but slightly more subtle, because you have to sell it.

Make it so compelling that people would be crazy not to read it.

Some subtips to make your writing more fun/sexy/compelling:

  1. Use microhumor: I don’t have an example of this because I’m not funny. (That was an attempt at microhumor, did I succeed?) But imagine reading as a series of tasks with a possible dopamine hit at the end of every sentence or paragraph. You stop reading if you don’t get enough dopamine, microhumor serves as a reward to motivate the reader to keep reading.
  2. Turn concept nouns into active verbs. For example, don’t talk about “power” but talk about the fat balding policeman forcefully pushing his knee into the innocent victim’s neck while he is struggling to breathe. That’s visual and visceral.
  3. Use visible details. See point above. Don’t show and tell. Make the reader see what you are seeing. Make the reader feel what you are feeling.
  4. Try to enjoy it! A good piece of writing should feel enjoyable, alive, and personal. It should feel like you are connecting with the piece and the writer on a personal level. For the piece to be really effective the reader needs to believe that the writer had a blast writing it.
  5. Brevity is wit: You can probably cut 50% without losing meaning. Do it. Your content should either be value or entertaining (which is also value).

Resources

I stole these tips mostly from these books and blogs:

  • https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/:
  • https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Learn-William-Zinsser/dp/0062720406
  • https://www.amazon.com/Art-Business-Online-Writing-Capturing/dp/0998203491
  • https://www.amazon.com/Nobody-Wants-Read-Your-Sh-ebook/dp/B01GZ1TJBI

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