# Some thoughts on writing

DevFeed: [Some thoughts on writing](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/some-thoughts-on-writing-77767.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://danluu.com/writing-non-advice/>)

Published: 2021-12-13T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Danluu](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/danluu.md>)

Topics: [Programming](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/programming.md>), [Learning](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/learning.md>)

Tags: [blogging](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/blogging.md>), [programming-blogs](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/programming-blogs.md>), [writing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/writing.md>)

## AI overview

The essay argues that writing style should follow a writer's goals and strengths rather than imitate successful bloggers. Using programming blogs and technical explanations as examples, it examines tradeoffs in length, precision, evidence and popularity. It also describes improving through editorial feedback, keeping publishing friction low and evaluating criticism carefully.

## Source excerpt

I see a lot of essays framed as writing advice which are actually thinly veiled descriptions of how someone writes that basically say "you should write how I write", e.g., people who write short posts say that you should write short posts. As with technical topics, I think a lot of different things can work and what's really important is that you find a style that's suitable to you and the context you operate in. Copying what's worked for someone else is unlikely to work for you, making "write how I write" bad advice. We'll start by looking at how much variety there's been in what's worked1 for people, come back to what makes it so hard to copy someone else's style, and then discuss what I try to do in my writing. If I look at the most read programming blogs in my extended social circles2 from 2000 to 20173, it's been Joel Spolsky, Paul Graham, Steve Yegge, and Julia Evans (if you're not familiar with these writers, see the appendix for excerpts that I think are representative of their styles). Everyone on this list has a different style in the following dimensions (as well as others): Topic selection Prose style Length Type of humor (if any) Level of technical detail Amount of supporting evidence Nuance To pick a simple one to quantify, length, Julia Evans and I both started blogging in 2013 (she has one post from 2012, but she's told me that she considers her blog to have started in earnest when she was at RC, in September 2013, the same month I started blogging). Over the years, we've compared notes a number of times and, until I paused blogging at the end of 2017, we had a similar word count on our blogs even though she was writing roughly one order of magnitude more posts than I do. To look at a few aspects that are difficult to quantify, consider this passage from Paul Graham, which is typical of his style: What nerds like is the kind of town where people walk around smiling. This excludes LA, where no one walks at all, and also New York, where people walk, bu