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Comment by slashink | Hacker News Reader

The tip that someone gave me a couple of years back that has changed my writing is to once the document is finished, print it (or transfer to another shaped device/change the font) and read it out loud for yourself. Transferring the writing to another environment and medium (speech), errors that you've missed for days suddenly become very obvious.

Doesn't take that much time and the quality of the writing goes up when hearing the prose as I perceive it differently, which allows me to feed this back into the final edit.

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The best professor I remember from my undergrad days in terms of teaching the vocation of writing gave similar advice. His was to write, read, delete, and re-write from memory. The idea being, that you'll wind up cutting what needs cut without bias that way. That clever sentence you're trying to save isn't so clever if even you can't remember it after reading it.

Writing isn't hard, it's just work like anything else. I think people have a false perception of it requiring some sort of talent, when in fact anyone can eventually hit a home run if you let them take 50 swings.

PS: the reason reading it out loud helps is that certain multiples of syllables per sentence tend to sound better. People tend to pair stressed / unstressed syllables rhythmically (iambs, using the ancient word, and hence the iambic notation mentioned in reference to Shakespeare's iambic rhymes, for instance). Recreating the same rhythmic patterns in writing makes the phrases on the page stand out as your mind voices them internally. So, always finish paragraphs with short, strong, 5 or 10 syllable phrases and you'll have people hanging on your every word and thinking you're singing the gospel to them.

Some advice from Gary Provost, author of "Make Every Word Count".

“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.

Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.

So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just write words. Write music.”

Quoted in http://www.timcasasola.com/blog/writing

Bingo

> , it is important

5 syllables ;).

Rhythm is also why it’s a good idea to avoid lots of multi-syllabic words. We tend to equally space stresses in time, and too many unstressed syllables, which occur more often in longer words, results in a rushed and unrhythmic sentence.

This works for software too. On multiple occassions I have lost early prototypes ( I am kind of sloppy ), which I had to reimplement from memory.

The second version is always a joy to write.

I also use the printed medium for final proofreading a lot. I feel a good 10 to 20 IQ points smarter when reading on paper, and catch a lot of mistakes and spot sections that need fixing. It's a lot of work, but for important writing, it is totally worth it.

For less important documents, the Mac-OS built-in text to speech is pretty good at catching typos and reading text to you. I highly recommend y'all try it out. It's a great too. Info about how to setup a keyboard shortcut here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mApa60zJA8rgEm6T6GF0yIem...

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