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Comment by paulpauper | Hacker News Reader

Great writing requires you to position your idea in a way that will resonate with the reader. Average writers start with what they want to say without considering how it will land with the reader. Great writers understand the journey starts with what the reader desires. Think of the difference as starting at the beginning or the end of a maze. When you start at the beginning, you have to convince people the path is the right one. When you start at the end, they already know you’re taking them where they want to go.

Isn't this just being a hack or predictable? I think another part of writing is taking risks. It's hard to know what will work or not, and you just got to hope for the best. My rule of thumb is to assume most things will not work. Low expectations are easier to beat.

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I don't know if starting with what the reader desires makes for great writing, though hackery definitely starts with what the writer expects or guesses the reader desires. Those are two different things.

It reminds me of David Chang starting Momofuku and putting dumplings on the menu because he thought people wanted them. It turns out he guessed wrong—they didn't—and neither did he, so the dumplings didn't make anyone happy. More here: https://archive.md/twtqo#selection-1433.165-1433.384

Perhaps one idea to unify this difference is: Who is "the reader," in this case? I remember reading Neil Strauss propose his idea on the Tim Ferriss podcast (https://tim.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/15-neil-strauss....):

> My reader is me, as a reader, probably. I can be reading a book and thinking, “Oh, my god, will this guy just get on with it?” If you're reading a book and thinking, “You know what? This guy is not even living up to what he's writing and saying that he's doing. He's a total hypocrite.” – Whatever I'm thinking when I'm reading. So, my reader is just me the way I would read a book critically.

Average writers stop after typing what they want to say, and they don't consider what they, as a reader, would think (or even bother to read it themselves).

No, not at all. It's just good writing. As with literally any skill, good writing is writing that achieves its purpose, and a good writer foresees what would make their writing work and does it.

But how do you know what will resonate ahead of time? Isn't risk taking also a part of writing? Sometimes it's hard to know what the reader will like despite the best efforts by the writer. It's hard to foresee anything with a medium as unpredictable and imprecise writing. Predicting the success of writing is not at all like Marvel predicting how a blockbuster will do.

Measuring and understanding that risk is the craft. This is like asking how musicians know that their music will move someone when they write the notes down on paper.

Yes, in which no musician will say they know before hand that their music will move people. They are operating off the assumption that if the music moves them, it will move others

Being a hack is rewriting the same story with the nouns changed. Keeping the audience in mind means you can target your writing in a focused manner.

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