Being unselfish also helps with building great products. Reminds me of this article, treat your reader like a customer: https://www.productlessons.xyz/article/improve-business-writ...
Slide 8: "Most of the writing in the world is for information." Readers looking for information aren't interested in being teased to keep reading. That's a recipe for 'unhooking' them. They want to know what the author thinks they should know.
No pussyfooting.
> I’m not going to demand that you put up with my quirks (bad spelling, bad organization, sloppiness). I’m going to package the information so that it enters your heads as easily as possible.
If we were discussing fiction writing, that would be different. Fiction writers aren't aiming for maximally efficient communication.
FWIW plenty of informational books pussyfoot just to get a bigger piece out, there is fluff, anecdotes, tangents, but humans understand through storytelling, and ultimately that is usually a good way to go about sharing ideas.
1. Easy writing makes for hard reading; invest in editing and treat your reader like a customer
2. What’s the biggest difference between great writers and all the rest? It’s not talent, it’s treating the process like a product
3. Make it skimmable; expect that your reader is busy
4. Every word should serve a purpose
5. Your points should fit like a jigsaw puzzle, each connected to another
From: "One of the best ways to improve your writing is to learn how to cut out words that are not necessary"
To: "To improve your writing, cut out unnecessary words."
I believe you meant, "1. Cut out unnecessary words."
;)
( Strunk and White, 1918 )
I think it's funny the summarized version is that statement. Because, in the presentation, they progressively cut down that exact statement to arrive at:
"To improve your writing, cut out unnecessary words."
> I believe you meant, "1. Cut out unnecessary words."
I think your version cuts out a little too much. It loses the why and becomes an unexplained imperative.
We thank you.
I suffer from the opposite problem—extremely deadpan personality. I insert exclamation points randomly in emails to seem human.
Often write the first sentence of a paragraph last, after you know what is the paragraph's main point.
For example, if you want to tell a story or go for specific emotions.
There are words that are necessary for the _overall effect_, even if not necessary for the literal communication goal of a set of words.
I was reminded of this recently after reading an essay by a high schooler. The essay was actually pretty insightful, but I couldn't help but notice the way in which the words that the author said seemed to be a great deal more than strictly necessary to communicate the point that he was trying to make to the audience that he was speaking to at the time he was writing the essay.
Perchance.
1. One of the best ways to improve your writing is to learn how to cut out words that are not necessary
2. Stuffy writing is bad writing! It lowers the power of your brain and mine!
3. What words should you never use in writing? Words whose exact meanings you don’t know! Never use a word unless you know EXACTLY what it means
4. If your writing is nonsense, maybe your thoughts are nonsense too!
5. To keep things clear and readable: Put the main point of each paragraph in its first sentence
6. Pretend you’re writing a textbook! That’s how I ended up writing so many books...Organizing knowledge Learning is a lot like writing a book
7. I often write the introduction last, after I know what it will introduce!
8. Never draw the reader’s eye to anything that is not the main point