How to not be terrible at writing

Last updated Feb 9, 2024

by Justin Gage

Writing should be fun and feel natural. Yes!:
Like code, writing should feel like a sort of flow – but it takes time to get there

Writing is very mood dependent; if you’re not feeling it, forcing it probably won’t help (but if you only wait for the perfect moment, it won’t get written)

1. INTENTIONALITY ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE AND GOAL
   1. Good posts are created for specific people and aim to get them to think or feel a specific thing
2. TELL A STORY
   1. Good posts tell a story, they don’t spit facts
3. ORGANIZATION
   1. Good posts are clearly organized and follow a linear progression of detail
4. VISUAL CUES
   1. Good posts use diagrams, lists, bold, and italic to convey emotion and break things up visually
5. THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF DETAIL
   1. 1. Good posts pick the perfect level of depth for the audience and goal

• A piece of content can only be effective for ONE audience – you can’t speak to multiple people at once
  • E.g. CFO vs. VP of Product
  • E.g. Data Scientist vs. Marketer
• E.g.
  • Audience: Data Science teams considering whether PyMC3 fits their use case
  • Thoughts and feelings: I now understand PyMC3’s strengths and weaknesses and can talk more intelligently about whether it makes sense for this project
• AT THE TOP OF EVERY POST:
  • Who is the audience?
  • What do I want them to think or feel after reading this?

• Ordering and organization are implied but legible
• All pedagogy assumes expertise
• Build an outline in advance
• Create clear section headers – more important than you think

• Be bad, it’s OK
• The only way to get better at writing is to write (shocker)
• Write
• Write some more
• Then also write more after that
• write

Origin: How to not be terrible at writing - Google Präsentationen and the youtube video How to not be a terrible writer
References:
Created 2022-10-21