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Ask PG: Essay Editing?

27 points by CBurns ↗ HN
PG has often emphasized the importance of editing and rewriting his essays. I was curious if he would be willing to post copies of some particular essay at various stages of editing. I would be really interested to see the progression.

23 comments

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cperciva
Would you want people reading your half-baked essays? I know "I'd be embarrassed to let anyone see this as it is right now" is the most common reason I have for not making code open source -- I wouldn't be surprised at all if PG, for exactly the same reason, didn't want to publish early drafts of his essays.
ferdinand
Actually, this would make a great essay in itself, wouldn't it?
sheriff
I've found that there's typically more benefit to be had from sharing an idea, than there is from hoarding it and believing you can perfect it on your own.

When I've done the former, it's been way less painful than I imagined, and when I've done the latter, the project has felt like it was stuck in tar (totally my fault).

sheriff
What I mean to suggest is: try exposing some ideas earlier than you're comfortable with now, and see if you weren't being a little over-protective.
angstrom
Alternatively: buy a composition book. They're usually littered with examples.
xenoterracide
why not? I have done my best to let go of caring what people think of me or my work. I will stand behind it. If there is a problem and I fix it.
pg
A few years ago I looked at an early draft of an essay to see which text made it into the final version. I never published it at the time, because it seemed presumptuous to think anyone else would be interested. But since you ask,

http://paulgraham.com/laundry.html

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iamwil
Do you find that you get better and faster at editing the essays, comparing the first essay to the most recent one? (I imagine so) Or it is something like a constant, but you just find ways to work around it?

I find that writing is good practice to to get my thoughts down coherently. And with a blogging habit, I find I can do it with much more ease, but it still takes a long while to re-edit something.

pg
You get better at deletion. When you first start writing, it's hard to delete stuff because it cost you a lot of effort to write it. As you get more confident, you get more ruthless in that respect: "This is crap. Out with it."

Editing is writing, however, and the hardest part of writing is thinking. I don't feel I've gotten much better at that.

cousin_it
Good read, thanks! The draft seemed to me more living and personal, while the finished version is pure idea. I wonder if it's possible to keep the intimate tone when you're editing for clarity.
pg
Interesting question. I think it would be hard. Maybe you could leave in occasional chatty bits to preserve that tone, at the cost of only a little extra length.
as
I think that intimacy is the awkwardness that's natural to real time conversation. Like where he knocks passion fruit. I laughed because of how out of tone it seemed.
adammichaelc
Wow! Talk about surprises. I've never thought about writing in that way. I think if I had I might have really enjoyed it. Hey, I think I might go write something that I've been thinking a lot about lately... now I just need to find out what I've been thinking about. haha Thanks for the insights.
sayrer
I usually learn from these essays, but I've always found them somewhat grating. Some perceive the style as confrontational, but I think that's unreasonable intellectual defensiveness that pg so often picks apart.

These deletions have helped me realize why these essays bother me, on a stylistic level. The cadence is very regular and robotic. It's easy to anticipate the switches from descriptions of conventional wisdom to a different way of framing the problem, and easy to anticipate that there will be a conventional wisdom to roast.

pg
Is the draft less grating?
sayrer
I haven't reread the edited version, but the draft is less grating to me than most of these essays (I read every essay). I can see why you deleted much of it, but the draft has some interesting detail that got cut.

The essays do have a lot of telling vs. showing, and maybe that gives them the feel of over-produced music. For instance, the paragraph about VC reactions to your suggestions in Why There Aren't More Googles would be way better as an anecdote with specific detail, imho.

gm
Your question misses the point. Essay editing (and double-checking anything, for that matter) is about THINKING.

Write something, then read, THINK, and improve. Repeat.

No more changes on the last pass? You're done.

(How many passes did this post take? Four. The secondary point of this post is to suggest making it a habit of double-checking everything you write)

gloodnc
I see an anology with lazy or run-of-the-mill programmers. Does the popularity of boilerplate allow some people to feel a sense of accomplishment with shallow efforts of thought per LOC?
hooande
As I read this, I can't help but think that some very interesting things were cut out in editing. I almost wish I could see more unedited versions of pg's essays.