What makes writing light without being shallow (ie not heavy/ponderous in the pursuit of depth)? 🤔
This is the note I generally try to hit (with about a 25% hit rate), but have no idea how I pull it off when I do
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IMO has more to do with writing/audience fit than qualities of writing per se
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This is where I too am converging. Depth of shared ground makes writing light.
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Carl Zimmer (great science writer) talked about this once and it's always stuck with me
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Kinda like beef-only thinking. Which I’m still trying to finish writing up as a post
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1. Write first draft with all the complexity and depth the topic demands.
2. Now try to summarize into one page and evolve a framework that can capture the essence.
3. Rewrite the entire thing with the framework at the center.
Very few have the gift of starting at 2.
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Being totally committed to your point, while totally unattached to how it gets made
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Raise good points at a good pace without belaboring any of them. Same for relationships among them and discussion thereof.
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conversational tone;
treating reader as generally smart if not up-to-date on the particular topic;
not speaking as if you have the truth but a perspective that you find interesting, saying why you find it so;
being slightly inebriated or pretending your listener is
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Is your hit rate linked to compatibility of your metaphors to those of the topic?








