My Writing Process | Hacker News Reader

My Writing Process

amrutaranade.com

128 pointsamruta279911 comments

I agree that consistently good writing is hard. But I also believe that consistently not bad writing is easy.

Not everything we write is long, complex or important enough to demand a research phase and external reviews. I would like the author to have spent more time in the Draft phase.

It is the first time I heard about the 5-draft technique. My impression is that it kind of assumes that you know what to look for when editing your own texts. I am starting a newsletter with written communication tips for developers and my main point is to direct people to what they should be paying attention while writing.

I distilled it to an acronym (just for fun): Miirror

Message - before writing it, think about the message you want to communicate.

Information - one part of the message is what you want to communicate - facts, data, instructions, requests, etc.

Intention - another part of the message is how you want to communicate - mood, state of mind, tone, etc.

Reader - while writing it, think about the person who will read your text.

Rapport - one dimension of caring about the reader is about creating empathy with the reader to improve the effectiveness of the communication.

Order - another dimension is about organizing your message (conceptually and visually) so your reader never feels lost or wasting time.

Rewrite - after writing it, rewrite it.

more detailed version: https://writingfordevelopers.substack.com/p/miirror-a-framew...

Are rewrites supposed to destroy the soul of the original idea? That's what mine do. Do you have any tips for that?

Edit: Why's poignant guide to ruby would be hard to rewrite imho, I'm guessing it would be hard for him to rewrite too.

> Are rewrites supposed to destroy the soul of the original idea?

No. They are supposed to distill, crystallize, and intensify it.

> That's what mine do. Do you have any tips for that?

You may be editing by imagining a hostile reader. That tends to force you to be defensive, remove things that are potentially disagreeable, add lots of hedges, etc. All of that waters it down.

Some amount of that can be important — accuracy matters and it's good to address the questions and concerns likely to come to the reader's mind. But I think it's still important to presume a good faith, charitable reader, and write for them.

> Edit: Why's poignant guide to ruby would be hard to rewrite imho, I'm guessing it would be hard for him to rewrite too.

It's a common mistake to assume that writing that reads as effortless and spontaneous was written that way. I don't know about _why, but many writers whose writing is noted for flowing naturally get there by painstakingly honing and refining those words over innumerable drafts.

It takes a lot of work to make it look easy.

Wow, I never thought about how I was imagining my reader while editing - I should keep this in mind while editing papers for submission.

Rewriting is about checking if each of the previous concerns is attended. By "soul" I assume you are talking about the message (both information and intention).

So rewrite is more like refactoring code: you change how it is presented not its function.

A tip would be write down your message in bullet points beforehand and, while rewriting it, check if you haven't missed a point you wanted to make.

I also believe that this acronym also establishes an order of priority for the concerns, from more important to least important: 1) Information, 2) Intention, 3) Rapport and 4) Order.

Your soul should be on the first two and they are the most important to be preserved (writing or rewriting).

In a lot of ways I think writing a text is similar to writing code. In both cases, I think there is a lot of value in getting something down that can be refined. In coding, the refining is done with refactoring. In regular writing, it's editing and rewriting. I find it much easier to have a poorly formulated sentence and then editing it into shape than it is for me to write a good sentence from the start. The same applies to code for me.

I have written about my process for writing blog posts here:

https://henrikwarne.com/2017/11/26/6-years-of-thoughts-on-pr...

I've been blogging a lot more in the past several months than before, recently on the order of an article per week or so. My process is this:

1. Add bullet-point-length ideas to a to-write list

2. Decide to write a post and pick the subject (which comes from the to-write list maybe 25% of the time)

3. Bust out the rough draft

4. Read it for grammar/spelling/phrasing review

5. if (edits > 5) goto 4

6. Share the draft among friends for feedback

7. if (edits > 3) goto 6

8. Publish

Whole process takes 1-3 hours per article.

Out of interest, do you have a circle of people who give you feedback and vice versa? Like a writing group? I'd be interested in something like this, as I really want to improve my written skills.

I have an IRC channel that I invite my Patreon supporters to and I like to post the drafts there, as well as to private social circles. If you'd like some feedback on your articles feel free to send me drafts, email's in my profile.

Very generous, thank you. I might just take you up on that offer.

> Yes, anyone can write, but not everyone can write well.

Either she thinks people who write do not have the potential to write well, or, she meant to say "...but not everyone writes well." The former is a little presumptuous, the latter is, well, poor writing.

I actually do not even see the point in projecting her experiences with writing onto others. She could have gotten the same point across without the awkward introduction. It could have been framed a little more personably, e.g., "I notice that my bad writing all stems from an unstructured process. Here is the process which has helped me to write well more consistently..."

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