Writing

Writing tips and tricks plus examples

When you write a first draft, you write it for yourself. When you rewrite it, you write it for everyone else.

—Stephen King

Julian Shapiro • Writing Well - Part 2 - Writing First Drafts

First draft

Four shortcuts for sourcing topics to write about:

Trigger ideas that bug you — Your most empassioned opinions often make for the best writing. To trigger opinions, you can consume other people's views (via Twitter, news, and conversations) and note when you strongly disagree. Then crack open a laptop and argue your counter-position. Assuming, that

Julian Shapiro • Writing Well - Part 5 - How to practice writing

Writers Block

To engage a reader's senses, you can do more than just add vivid details. You can also swap plain phrases for more engaging ones.

Pay attention to the bold words, which now create metaphors:

“Make me an instrument of your pain.”

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

“Where there is hatred, let me

Julian Shapiro • Writing Well - Part 4 - Writing Style

Writing Tips - Style

You only fully understand the context of a sentence when you're done reading it. So, the longer the sentence, the more details you hold in your head at once. That makes understanding already complex points even harder.

Julian Shapiro • Writing Well - Part 3 - Rewriting and Editing

Writing Tips - Rewriting for Clarity

People read nonfiction to learn and to feel. My framework for ensuring a blog post accomplishes both is to start with a first draft that focuses on "novel" ideas.

A novel idea is one that's not just new to the reader, but also significant and not easily intuited. Think of it as new and worthwhile . I've identified five categories:

Counter-intuitive —

julian.com • Writing Well - Part 1 - What to Write About

Writing tips - Ideation

Have a captivating intro that buys goodwill.

Have at least one peak of insight or surprise.

Have an ending that satisfyingly justifies why the piece was worth reading.

There’s your writing formula. The rest of your article can be weak and most readers will still enjoy it. Take comfort in the implication: not every paragraph has to be interesting.

Julian Shapiro • Writing Well - Part 3 - Rewriting and Editing

Writing Tips - Be Intruiging

I recommend writing a terrible first draft as quickly as you can. Your goal is to speedrun—to blast through the laziness and the blockers to just get garbage onto paper. This shortcuts you to the rewriting phase, which most people find far less painful. It's strange how well this works.

That's why, in my bad first draft, I use placeholders any time... See more

Julian Shapiro • Writing Well - Part 2 - Writing First Drafts

Writing tips - First draft

I've also found that switching text editors tricks my brain into re-reading my work with new eyes. For example, if I wrote the first draft in Dropbox Paper, I'll write the second draft in Google Docs. Those tools format text differently, which kicks your brain out of pattern recognition mode, and makes it feel like you're editing someone else's... See more

Julian Shapiro • Writing Well - Part 3 - Rewriting and Editing

Writing Tips - Feedback

In addition to interesting talking points, you're also looking for surprising ideas.

Surprise is anything that contradicts what readers know or expect you to say. It makes them think, “Wow. That’s unexpected.”

You generate surprising talking points using essayist Paul Graham’s method: First, learn the basic knowledge of a topic. Then, if you can... See more

Julian Shapiro • Writing Well - Part 2 - Writing First Drafts

Writing tips - Ideation