写作方法2011codinghorror.com编辑精选
如何不写作也能写作
How to Write Without Writing
导读
这篇文章讨论如何把日常的社区回答、评论和讨论当作写作练习：不必一开始就正正经经写长文，而是在真实交流中持续表达，并借助投票、回复等反馈改进。对写作者的价值在于降低动笔门槛，把写作嵌入日常对话，同时提醒反馈和原创思考的重要性。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把论坛或评论区的解释当作长文初稿：先在有真实问题的对话里写清楚，再整理成文章。
- 02
用“回复式写作”降低启动门槛，先完成再打磨，比正式开写更容易坚持。
- 03
主动争取反馈：投票、回复、是否被采纳都是写作反馈，能放大练习效果。
- 04
不要只重复“多写”；每篇要有一个自己的核心观点，避免为写而写和堆砌引用。
HN 评论精选
把社区讨论中的解释当作低门槛初稿，能降低写作启动成本。
HN 对此也很有用。我是学术研究者，觉得不少论文表达得不好，或者只写给同子领域的人看。我的中期计划之一是把喜欢的内容用少术语、少形式化的方式重写成教程或博客；但它常被其他任务挤后，感觉像“工作”，即使我享受。可在 HN 讨论中解释自己熟悉的东西就像聊天，自然得多；结果不一定精炼，但有时我会把 HN 评论当作长教程的初稿。比如这条评论本可扩成更好编辑、配图和例子的博客，标题类似“互动小说中的隐式与显式模型”；可写博客会长期躺在待办清单，而这条评论只因讨论中冒出来，20 分钟就写完了。“回复评论”而非“写一篇文章”骗过了写作的感觉。
_delirium查看英文原文
HN is useful for this too. My particular niche is that I'm an academic researcher, but I think there's a bunch of stuff that's poorly presented in academic papers, or at least only presented in a way that's intended to be read by other people in the same field (or sub-field, or sub-sub-field). So one of my medium-term plans is to re-present some of the stuff I like in a less jargony and formal way, in tutorials / blog posts / whatever. But often that gets pushed off behind other obligations, and it feels like Work, even if it's work that I enjoy. But posting an explanation of something I know about that comes up in a discussion on HN just feels like conversation, much more natural. It's not always as polished as a result, but sometimes I've actually used my HN comments as a first-draft of a longer tutorial. For example (for a bit of self-promotion), this recent comment possibly could've been a better-written and better-edited blog post, with some images and examples, and a title like "implicit and explicit models in interactive fiction", or I dunno, something like that but catchier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2177226. But writing something like that would probably sit on the TODO list for a long time; meanwhile I just banged out that comment in 20 minutes or so because it came up in discussion. The fact that it was "replying to a comment" rather than "writing a thing" somehow tricked it into not feeling like writing. Now if I ever want to write a blog post, I have a draft of the idea written out.
在真实讨论中写有说服力的文字，比课堂创意写作和凑字数更能训练清晰沟通。
我在这里花时间，就是为了通过博客、HN 等写有说服力的文字来提升写作。我从第一门英语课起就讨厌写作：当时过度强调创意写作（对很多现实场景用处有限，主要练技巧），又看重字数（写三页，少了就扣分），这不利于清晰、简洁、直接地沟通。学校写作在初中后应快速越过创意阶段，高中转向技术、非虚构和说明性写作，并与文学课分开。我也讨厌打字课，后来通过 telnet 进 MUD 自学，比反复打“cat cat cat dog cat cat”更有趣、更少苦工；缺点是左手食指打 b 键，用不了人体工学键盘。
zdw查看英文原文
Improving my writing skill by writing persuasively on blogs, HN, etc. is why I spend time here. I've always hated writing, from my first english courses. I felt the way it was done, with an overemphasis on creative writing (which is of limited use in many real-world situations, beyond developing technique), and the focus on word count (write me a 3 pager, if it's less your grade goes down) was a detriment to clear, concise, well written and direct communication. Writing in school should quickly progress past the creative stage after middle school, and focus on technical, nonfiction, and other explanatory methods through high school. It should be split off from literature courses, which would better be combined with philosophy and history. Similarly, I hated typing classes. I learned to type by telnetting into MUDs and learning it on my own. This was much more fun and less of a grind than typing "cat cat cat dog cat cat" over and over. The downside? I can never use an ergonomic keyboard, as I hit the "b" key with my left index finger.
批评文章缺乏原创洞见、像为写而写，提醒写作要有自己的核心观点而非堆引用。
说来奇怪，我读完没学到什么有价值的东西。“多写。谢谢。”这我早知道。不是想刻薄，但这篇文章很讽刺：整篇像是有人坐下来硬逼自己写点什么，却没形成多少原创思考。他大量引用联合创始人，而不是提出自己的洞见；还把“怎样算好程序员”和“怎样算好作家”两个很主观的话题混在一起，结果两个都没讲清。沟通很重要，是的。我漏掉了什么吗？还有别的吗？我不想攻击作者，语气重了抱歉。我知道自己常常要围绕同一主题从多个角度反复写，才能真正写好；也许这篇也是这样（若如此，我纳闷它为何得这么多票）。
DanielBMarkham查看英文原文
Oddly enough, I read this and came away without capturing anything of value from it. Write more. Thanks. Already knew that. I hate to sound snarky, but it's very ironic -- this entire post had the feeling of somebody sitting down to make themselves write something, anything -- without developing much original thought. In fact he quotes his cofounder quite a bit instead of coming up with insights of his own. He mixed together two very subjective ideas, "what makes good programmers" and "what makes good writers" in a way that didn't manage to shed light on either one. At least to me. Communication is important, yes. Am I missing something? Was there something else? Like I said, not trying to attack the writer, and I apologize if my tone is harsh. I know many times I have to write things over and over again, coming at the same topic from multiple angles, before I really nail it. Perhaps this is what's going on. (In which case I begin to wonder why it got so many votes)
写作必须争取反馈；投票、评论、编辑和采纳都会放大练习效果。
我觉得文章结论略过了一点：有反馈的写作比无反馈有价值得多。给 Jeff 写信的人说得很清楚：赞或踩以及答案是否被采纳，都是对其写作的反馈，让他/她变得更好。书写有编辑让作者和书更好，博客有评论者让博主更好，SO 答案有评论者和投票让参与者更好。所以，是的，尽管去写；但也要为写作争取反馈，因为它会让写作带来的学习成倍增加。
stevie_wilks查看英文原文
I think one of the points that was glossed over in the conclusion of the article is that writing with feedback is much more valuable than without it. The author of the letter to Jeff made this very clear that the up and down votes and whether or not the answer was accepted was feedback on his/her writing and it made them better. Authors of books have editors to make the author (and the book) better, blogs have commenters which make the blogger better, SO answers have commenters and votes to make the participants better. So DO just go out there and write yes; but also try to get feedback for your writing because it will multiply the amount you learn by writing.
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