Ask HN: How to learn writing blog posts? I have a topic I’d like to write about. However, I’m getting lost In the weeds and failing to structure my content in an easy to consume way. What are some great resources to learn writing blog posts / articles? I’m actually open to pay for a professional coach but not sure how to find a good one. Suggestions are welcome! |
What helps me to actually sit down and write something for my blog[0] is writing about something related to work. I make a structure first, paste links, comments, whatever. Then do a second or third pass to fill in the sections and make it presentable.
For grammar, I use Grammarly to stay in check.
They also have exclusive training for their customers.
As a side note it is the most featured Wordpress theme I have worked with. It is great for marketers like me.
Don't worry about the words or having complete sentences. Work on editing the outline and add/remove stuff. Once you're happy, then you can start writing down the essay.
Here’s what I did:
1. Start by making notes on your favourite podcast episode or book.
2. Use the notes as an outline.
3. Then expand with your own personal stories.
Search for PG and Seth Godin “on writing”. I found them both useful.
Also I used this method on my first post last week. And it got 25k views.
Edit: you can find it pinned to my Twitter handle
* http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
* More practice
* Aggressively tune your writing for an explicitly chosen target audience
* Practice again
* cut cut cut. Your post is finished when there is no more content that can be cut.
* practice
I’ve written thousands of blog posts and happy to point you in the right direction!
Two other books I recommend are:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/353358.Keys_to_Great_Wri...
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22458828-write-everythin...
I'm not the best writer. But I can churn out quite a bit of content when I need to. Here's some tips.
1. Allow 1st draft to be bloody awful. It's a brain dump. Just get it done. Don’t edit or correct any spelling as you go. Worry about editing, argument order or spelling later. The Pomodoro Technique is a great way to force yourself to get your 1st draft finished.
2. Write way more than you need and then cut ruthlessly in your 2nd, 3rd drafts. Rule of thumb is that your 2nd draft should be 10%-30% smaller than your 1st.
3. Proofing your writing is hard. If it’s an important article hire a proof reader - they’ll spot mistakes which you won’t be aware of. If it’s just a personal blog post, then listening to your article through text to speech software is a great way catch errors. Also consider using this app: https://intelligentediting.com/
4. Writing is a skill. You’ll get better the more you do it. I recently decided to redo a personal blog of mine which I started 10 years ago. This was my first attempt at blogging or writing since my school days. The stuff I’d written 10 years ago was horrible. However, it was good to see how much my writing has improved since then. But it’s taken a lot of practice, hard work and time to get there.
5. As Stephen King says: You should read as much as you write. And make a habit of reading good writers often. I recommend anything by George Orwell & PG Wodehouse. Some of their writing is nearly 100 years old but it still shines today. Orwell’s prose is masterful. More modern writers to read are Elmore Leonard and Stephen King.
Here's some software I use/recommend:
https://intelligentediting.com/ <<great for proofing. If you are writing technical stuff this is an excellent tool have.
Lastly, practice, practice, practice.
The first thing you need to consider is your fundamental thesis, the big high level idea you want to convey. You may not know at the beginning, or maybe it's just, "there's this interesting thing!" Honestly that's a fine thesis. You may also find, as you write, that your thoughts clarify and your thesis changes or develops. It's okay if not though, sometimes you just want to talk about the way something is cool to you.
Now you have to consider your audience. Who do you want to read your work? Is it for kids? for adults? for developers? For developers with kids? Maybe you aren't sure, and that's okay, but thinking about who you want to read it will give you a better sense of how to write, what metaphors or similes are useful, etc. Keep in mind your audience as you reread what you write imagine them reading it. What parts are boring? What parts would they be less likely to understand?
Now you need to develop your thesis. The way you do that is you share ideas related to, or that are aspects of, your thesis, and then you provide evidence for them.
One thing to consider in doing this, if you feel like your content isn't structured well, is maintaining a consistent level of detail returning to it after going down a step or two. I feel that one to two levels below your central thesis is enough. You might break your thesis into topics and those are sections or chapters. Or maybe they are paragraphs.
For example if you are talking about python abstractly, say generators, you might provide a real example, discuss why you use a generator for that, then go another level down to give example code, but you probably shouldn't talk about python byte code, C, assembly etc.
If you want to practice, I find a good place is open source documentation for stuff that lacks sufficient documentation, and there is the potential for feedback built-in and your practice also generates something useful. You can also write book reviews on good reads, write emails or letters to friends and colleagues.
But yeah, I'm told I'm a skillful writer, and maybe that's true and the way I got there wasn't a coach. It was basically reading a lot as a kid, and then writing a lot. I'm still not sure I'm all that good, but I don't worry much about being a good writer. Maybe it's crap work, but hey, it's done. Done is better than perfect, as the old saying goes.
I solved this problem by hiring a freelance editor from Upwork.[0] It was a few hundred dollars to have her read a few of my articles. The high-level feedback was extremely helpful and had a huge impact on my readership almost instantly.
Obviously, it's not a magic bullet. I still had to do the work of integrating her feedback and continuing to find ways to improve my writing. But like anything else, expert feedback helps you grow faster than just learning on your own through trial and error.
[0] https://mtlynch.io/painless-web-app-testing/#a-reusable-patt...
https://mtlynch.io/how-to-hire-a-cartoonist/
Professional illustrations are another thing I think are underused in blogging. It's not that expensive, and it looks much better than stock photos.
There are other people probably similar enough to “future you” to also engage with what you write. But if they don’t appreciate it, then forget them, they’re not the primary audience anyway!
(And those that do engage will be the kind you want lasting relationships with. Which is a nice side benefit).
I’ve long learned deep engagement from a handful of people, or just future me, is far more meaningful than shallow engagement from many randos.
The other book I'd recommend is The Pyramid Principle[2] by Barbara Minto.
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-10th-Anniversary-Memoir-Craft...
[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Pyramid-Principle-Logic-Writing-Think...
For blog writing I recommend making a practice of bookmarking posts you like and asking yourself why you like them or why they work. I will point out that blogs permit a flexibility of style and content that few writing forms have ever had. This is a double-edged sword, truly.
I’m going through a similar process so I definitely recognize the challenge you’re having. Good luck!
Edit: I just remembered bookmarking Paul Graham’s excellent “How to Write Usefully” the other day. It might be helpful to you: http://paulgraham.com/useful.html
So, I said all this, in a rambling way, to say that you can do this without paying others. Just be disciplined about it. Maybe take the 100 day challenge to blogging. Post it anon, if you're worried about criticism.
Good luck. I also second nondeveloper's two book recommends (Elements of Style and On Writing Well), if you need a lot of helpful advice.
I strongly recommend the active voice.
> The C-C-C scheme that we advocate serves a more patient reader, who is willing to spend the time to get oriented with the context. A consequent disadvantage of C-C-C is that it may not optimally engage the impatient reader.
Unless it's something like a thesis, I wouldn't worry about perfecting it. You'll learn more (and get feedback sooner) if you just get it out there and focus on the fact that your next article will be that much better, and the next, and the next etc. Otherwise you'll find yourself accumulating diminishing returns with repeated revisions.
If it truly is something quite important, then consider splitting it up over a series of posts over time.
As for the mindset to be in when writing it, think about what you would say to a friend if you were explaining the concept to them. Over an email, for example.
You should also think about the audience for the post. Is it just general reading where you expect people to browse reddit and see it or is it something highly specialized where your readers will likely come from google search looking for reference information.
Why is this important.
Define key terms.
Walk through an example of how your topic can be applied in an interesting way to beginners and advanced users. (Include screenshots)
Conclusion.
It’s almost like a five paragraph essay from middle school. This is the basic format.
Create an outline that lists all your top level ideas. Create sub topics with as many details as you can. —- then try to convert this to the above format. Edit. Then wait two days and edit it again. Wait two days and edit it again.
Edit until you are happy. But I would suggest spending at least a week from first sentence to final product.
I am struggling with this too. My website(s) are empty of content. And not because I can't write it but I can't bring myself to publish. Seems similar to you.
Something I tell myself is that I literally can always go back, re-read it, and update it whenever I want. I also have promised myself if I have a better version of the article I can replace it with the new one with a new date. I keep the date out of the url for this reason.
Forum comments on the topic can help you learn how to talk about a particular topic. Like I sometimes talk or write about housing issues and "affordable housing" is a buzz word that means a particular thing to a lot of people and what they hear is not what I am trying to say. So I went looking for other phrases and began thinking about what I want people to hear and began just avoiding that term most of the time.
Writing for pay can be an enormous growth experience that can help discipline you to focus more on what other people want or what the parameters need to be and get out of that mindset of just kind of talking to yourself, only in writing.
It can help to start blurbs and to work on it over time. If you put it away and read it again at a later date and stop and go "Wait a minute. I just interpreted that sentence as X and I know I really meant to convey Y." then you think about "How do I really say Y?"
It can help to find online tools of various sorts that give you feedback on your writing, like: http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
https://ellenrhymes.com/paul-graham/
The author of the essay is a writing coach, too. But working with her might be a little bit expensive. Especially if you are just starting out.
I’m willing to help you for free if you want me to. I’ve been blogging for the last couple months at https://danielbusta.com/
Ricocheting from your consumption metaphor, could it be that your topic has enough meat in it that it deserves to be sliced and served over the course of several meals?
The attention economy being the way it is today, articles that succeed in being read observe the rule of thumb of one idea, one message, one piece of writing.
Focus less on presentation, more on content. Write shorter things and ship often. Everyone gets to 20,000 words ~50x within their first million [1].
Just write.
[1] https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1317627674810929152?s=20
Write out why you like their style and structure. Break it apart and look for patterns you can use as a framework.
Ideally you'll have 2-3 frameworks to start and that helps immensely with getting over the initial writers block and structuring your thoughts.
Write the first 20 posts and then worry about making it more complex after that!
[0] There doesn't seem to be a single canonical document to read but there's thousands readily searchable.
I really like Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club). He recently released a book on writing. I got it from a local library and it is full of actionable advice. Excellent stuff.
Another idea worth considering is that writing is a craft like anything else. How long does it take someone to learn how to play a musical instrument? At least a few years of consistent practice, right? Writing is the same, it'll take a few years.
Just because you can talk to people, does not mean you are a good communicator. I'm not :) Writing makes people aware of how unstructured their thinking is. Totally normal. Keep going.
Lastly you can write about interesting things such as the when you solved a hard problem you face and this can have a great impact as someone might be having the same problem but you writing about it can actually help others who had the same problem.
Furthermore you can also write about interesting tools you come across the internet or how to use them in your blogpost.
Having a blog can put an positive impact and its the way of giving back to the community (I mean that's how I think and its just my personal opinion)
Also, do you already have a tool for writing? A good tool allows you to structure your content better and allows your thoughts to flow much easily. I'm using a tool called Ulysses (http://ulysses.app). Unfortunately, it's only available for Apple.
Hope it helps.
One of my best blog posts, on which I dedicated >4 months in research,writing and editing has been read by less than 300 people. In cotrast, a post I wrote off-handedly during a flight back from a conference and didn't even bother to edit was read by more than 10k people in a short time and was tweeted and generated a nice amount of traction.
https://www.readingrockets.org/sites/default/files/strategy_...
This is for your entire blog post, but also each individual paragraph. Add an introduction and conclusion, then build out and expand each section.. then you’re done.
Look up answers to that question and you'll get further. You'll even find free online courses to help you.
Look up creative writing. Look up Journalism. Writing is a deep topic. Sure some people can make it look easy. But it's not. It's dang blam difficult.
Also, it sounds like you're having trouble quickly learning a topic. That's another problem entirely.
> David Eddings, an American novelist who was most famous for his epic fantasy books, once gave the following advice to new writers:
> “My advice to the young writer is likely to be unpalatable in an age of instant successes and meteoric falls. I tell the neophyte: Write a million words–the absolute best you can write, then throw it all away and bravely turn your back on what you have written. At that point, you’re ready to begin.”
> That same advice has come from a number of other sources—it’s tough to determine just who said it first. Some point to legends such as Ray Bradbury or Jerry Pournelle, both of whom famously advice that new writers should write a million words before considering themselves ready to take up the cause.
* https://www.draft2digital.com/blog/the-first-million-words-a...
* https://blog.karenwoodward.org/2014/03/one-million-words-to-...
Of course the first 1e6 can't be written carelessly either, simply going through the motions.
The first part of "On Writing" is fantastic, in the sense that it tells you through King's own life that there are no shortcuts: you must learn by writing. And sometimes, you'll have people to criticize what you wrote, and that'll be the best thing.
