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Comment by clivestaples | Hacker News Reader

I taught Gore Vidal how to use a computer in 1995. After a week worth of trying to use a PowerBook Duo, he went back to pen and paper. When asked how to improve my writing, he said use a pen and transcribe your favorite author. That I would eventually find the rhythm and style and make it my own.

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As I understand it, that's more or less what Benjamin Franklin says he did to become a better writer.

https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2017/10/02/how-ben-franklin...

Benjamin Franklin said the same in his autobiography. I wonder if Gore Vidal had read it.

Very interesting. Hunter S. Thompson described the same technique for learning to write. I'll try it even if it only gets applied to technical blog posts...

I always remembered this anecdote. Was he a fan of retyping books? Or writing long hand?

That's really cool. I read Lincoln when I was around 18 and it has always stuck with me. The books you read become a part of you; they grow your view of the world. Books are the only way we have to capture the experience or mind of another person, and directly transfer not only their words but almost a sliver of the authors soul directly to others. Movies, sure.. But books hook into the imagination and mind.

when studying mathematics and computer science i would handwrite algorithms, draw all psuedocode on paper first, and reconstruct steps from published papers, all extremely useful

i've actually had marketed to me on the socials a course on "transcribing" professional writers demonstrating various angles of the craft. I'm sure the course was vibed or something. Pretty easy to identify authors you like, and whose dialog snaps, whose descriptions you identify with, whose doing great character development, etc. And then transcribe them....

EDIT: maybe the term I was looking for is: copywork?

i read half of Troilus and Criseyde out loud to myself one summer in college and i may be a weirdo but it paid dividends. unbowdlerized Chaucer is the tits

Never knew about Ben Franklin. Thanks! After spending a week with him, no doubt he was the smartest and best-read person I'd ever been around.

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