from Hacker News

Write More, but Shorter

by defaulty on 9/10/21, 4:16 PM with 116 comments

  • by mcrittenden on 9/10/21, 8:26 PM

    Oh hey, I'm the person mentioned in the first sentence of this post. I was wondering why my stats went up today!

    I've published a blog post every weekday for over a year now (today's was #280). It's been life changing for me. It's now my go-to method for figuring out what I think about something and for crystallizing those thoughts and finding links between them.

    - I figured out that I wanted a new job while writing a blog post (and I started that new job 9 months ago).

    - I learned that I'm not an introvert, but rather a shy extrovert, while writing a blog post.

    - That led into me realizing I have social anxiety while writing a blog post.

    There are lots more examples of that. I'm often surprised to find that I don't actually believe what I thought I believed when I started writing that blog post.

    Journaling never stuck for me because it felt like work, but making it public made it exciting and fulfilling enough to become a habit that I look forward to each day.

    Since the author mentioned Zettelkasten, I'll add this: https://critter.blog/2021/02/10/blogging-as-a-zettelkasten/

  • by tombert on 9/10/21, 5:42 PM

    I don't remember the original source, but in Leslie Lamport's Specifying Systems book, he quoted someone saying "Writing is nature's way of telling you how sloppy your thinking is."

    Generally, if you're writing long, rambling posts, there's a good chance that your understanding of the subject that you're writing about is sloppy (not to say you don't understand it, just that your thoughts are all over the place). If you can express what you're writing in a fairly short amount of time, you probably have a relatively good mental model of what it is you're tying to say, and this is a learnable (and useful) skill.

    I've found that getting into the practice of writing "notes that I will actually read in the future" has helped a lot with this.

  • by andai on 9/10/21, 5:45 PM

    Just this morning my dyslexic friend said he loves to write in bullet points, because reading is very labor-intensive for him. He wished that articles would just give you the meat in bullet points instead of spreading the actual information out over several pages of fluff.

    That made me realize, keeping dyslexic people in mind when writing is one of those things that improves accessibility for everyone.

  • by themodelplumber on 9/10/21, 4:25 PM

    Nice post, how do you like your Zettelcloud so far? I'm always interested to hear.

    Looking at Mike's article:

    > Because the shorter it is, the more people will read it.

    What.

    > Because of the Pareto principle: 80% of the value is in 20% of the length (hence “5x shorter”).

    WHAT.

    I guess a lot of us write so that other people will read...I guess.

    But also, a lot of us write to exorcise our informational/emotional demons (to use a metaphor). It's taking care of oneself. And a lot of the time that looks like piles of words. Especially given a nice amount of intuition-stimulant like caffeine.

    Writing/blogging has headed more this way for me personally, the longer I've been writing & blogging. But I also don't blog for leads or income anymore, and don't care as much about my audience dynamics. Is that where the cutoff is?

    If somebody really wants the short version I find that they'll email me and probably get a disappointing reply...

  • by wenc on 9/10/21, 6:52 PM

    I like terse writing but I’ve also learned two things about it. The first is that minimalist narrative writing linearizes nonlinear thought. The linearity is often—correctly or incorrectly—perceived as clarity but it really is just linearity. In some cases preserving nonlinearity is actually helpful (for instance, a conversation with interjections and meanderings). Second, terseness is not appreciated by all. Fillers and repetitions are sometimes necessary for politeness and to soften language. This is why you should strive to write more rather than less when what you’re about the say is liable to be misunderstood or if you want to emphasize something.

  • by mcbishop on 9/10/21, 7:23 PM

    > Simple means getting rid of extra words. Don’t write, “He was very happy” when you can write “He was happy.” You think the word “very” adds something. It doesn’t. Prune your sentences.

    Scott Adams https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the...

  • by cyberge99 on 9/10/21, 5:15 PM

    I once heard “when talking to senior leadership, say as much as you can in as few words as possible”.

    Interestingly, I heard it from some actor being interviewed on the Howard Stern show.

  • by rckrd on 9/10/21, 4:37 PM

    This has been working for me. Before, I struggled to finish blog posts between working on other things. Now, for the last 100 days, I've been writing a short blog post every day.

  • by tpoacher on 9/11/21, 11:28 AM

    I would say that "shorter" isn't the key. It just happens that when one writes "shorter" one tries to write in a more consice and structured manner. Not always, but typically.

    Whereas whenever I see a long article, it's typically because the author decided to ramble about everything, nothing, and their dog, before they even get to anything remotely related to their point, by which point I've already lost the will to live. Not to mention I suspect they do this increase adspace, and then feel cheated I was tricked into clicking in the first space.

    But a well reasoned argument need not be short to be effective. Orwell's essays do not need cliffnotes in order to be appreciated. CS Lewis does not need it.

    So I would replace "short" with "intentional", "structured", "respectful" ... I think it just happens that it's easier to be unstructured and disrespectul during longer rants than it is with shorter ones.

  • by tyingq on 9/10/21, 7:22 PM

    The linked original source in the article has a more clear phrasing..."Write more often, but make each thing you write shorter."

    https://critter.blog/2020/10/02/write-5x-more-but-write-5x-l...

  • by OneEyedRobot on 9/10/21, 7:31 PM

    If for no other reason, I can see the point of righting shorter because people are losing their ability to read anything longer.

    I've decided to do all business correspondence as haiku from here on.

    --------

    Regarding your code

    I would replace all the tabs

    With happy faces

  • by Brendinooo on 9/10/21, 6:23 PM

    Seemed like the blog post was more about note taking, but this ethos is why I like Twitter.

    I realized that I have always enjoyed blogging. A medium that encourages terseness, has minimal friction to post, and provides a decently-sized audience lets me talk about my life in a way that makes me choose words more carefully.

  • by dgs_sgd on 9/10/21, 6:38 PM

    The underlying problem is the clarity of one's writing. For inexperienced writers it's highly likely that the longer their writing the more rambling and incoherent it is. Therefore it's a good rule of thumb for an inexperienced writer to write shorter.

  • by dredmorbius on 9/11/21, 5:53 AM

    Writing should fit its purpose.

    Simple ideas can be conveyed clearly and concisely.

    Complex ideas need space to grow, roam, demonstrate, and explain. But more critically (and something Zettlekasten should help with significantly) they require structure. John McFee's description of his use of index cards is among the best (and most concise) explanations of this that I've found.

    A classic bit of bad writing advice I see, at least for someone trying to express complex thoughts, is the idea that writing only or simply requires adding some fixed number of words per day. Write a uniform 3,000 words per day, and you'll crank out a 250,000 word epic novel in three months. It ... doesn't work like that. It's not that you can't simply keep stringing words together. But eventually that's going to show.

    Simple structures are simple. A box, or hut, or short program, or simple essay, can be stream of consciousness or happenstance. A more complex structure with interdependencies, relationships, and constraints requires more thought, a framework off of which to hang the parts, and an overall organisation.

    Short fragments can give you the parts you're looking for, but you'll still need to fit them together. And apply tape, string, and mortar where needed as well.

  • by GordonS on 9/10/21, 6:23 PM

    A while back I got in trouble at work because I was perceived as being too direct in emails. IMO my mails were fine, and I varied the level of directness depending on the target audience - but others felt differently, so I started padding them out with fluff and niceties, and unfortunately it became a habit that I've found difficult to break.

    And inevitably, some people have since said that my mails should come with a TL;DR! Sure enough, I feel like I used to be succinct, and now I'm just overly verbose, with redundant sentences, and sometimes seemingly rambling.

    Hell, if you made it this far through this rambling comment, well done ;)

  • by smoyer on 9/10/21, 5:23 PM

  • by kendru on 9/10/21, 4:33 PM

    I love how the post is a demonstration of the practice it describes.

  • by paulpauper on 9/10/21, 10:06 PM

    This advice is effective only if you are already famous or established. The most successful online writers who built their own brands without outside help began by writing huge, long articles that appealed to readers with high iqs and high attention spans. Short, concise articles are a dime a dozen and forgettable. You need to write looong essays to stand out and get content viral even if the articles are seldom read to thier entirety. An example is waitbutwhy.

  • by hirundo on 9/10/21, 7:58 PM

    The ultimate exaggeration of this would be a grand unified theory of everything. Maybe Stephen Wolfram will write it someday in the form of a cellular automata rule set.

  • by bserge on 9/10/21, 9:23 PM

    Imo, write less, but longer. It allows you to better articulate your thoughts and create content that is in-depth, helpful and often timeless.

    If you can't connect the beginning, middle and end of a single 3000 word article, why do you think you can do it with 5x 600 word ones? Same for video and audio.

    Plus, "more and shorter" brought us the cancer that is Twitter, Facebook, Imgur and TikTok.

  • by Animats on 9/11/21, 4:59 AM

    Write more.

    Write shorter.

    Get more clicks.

    Profit!

    I stopped reading as soon as the first pop-up toolbar appeared.

  • by tyroh on 9/11/21, 3:42 AM

    I used to have a bit of anxiety writing about things in public but I still want to build my writing muscles.

    So now, I summarize articles into notes which both helps me and others. Also, no one really reads any more, at least in my circle.

    Most of my long form content has been converted into checklists, slides and diagrams.

  • by GuB-42 on 9/10/21, 10:49 PM

    It works with code too.

    In fact it looks like the process for writing good articles and writing good code is not so different.

    Each word should be meaningful and precise. Text has to be short but without resorting to obscure abbreviations and references. Of course spelling, syntax and formatting has to be correct.

  • by andreyk on 9/10/21, 11:24 PM

    Sounds like this post is recommending you keep a journal, certainly a good practice, as the post says writing is an invaluable tool for reflection. But I don't think the advice is as useful for creating writing that is of value to others.

  • by redkidster on 9/10/21, 7:55 PM

    "Like Shakespeare said, "brevity is the soul of wit", which just means: "Don't waste my fucking time"" - Mr. Plinkett

  • by davegri on 9/11/21, 10:59 AM

    The logical conclusion of this maxim is "tweet more often".

  • by j0hns0n on 9/11/21, 4:07 PM

    Congrats. You discovered "note to self"

  • by jyriand on 9/10/21, 8:52 PM

    Writer shorter, yes. Write like a robot, no.

  • by blippage on 9/11/21, 7:54 AM

    Keep it short for pithy's sake.

  • by emodendroket on 9/11/21, 2:24 AM

    On this theory I'm spending hours on Twitter.