[ChipSkylark]

For me, this is one of the most valuable posts I have seen on hacker news. Thanks for sharing.

I strengthen my writing muscle by writing down a foundational "anchor" concept at the top of the page and then writing about it in isolated chunks or paragraphs that use orthogonal approaches (i.e. changing the tone, verbosity, directness, amount of supplemental information). Then I consolidate and prune ideas until I have coherent content. This helps me form my writing style and keep it fresh and dynamic over time.

I find that giving yourself the space to express things in new ways helps your audience see how you change as a person over time, which is cool because I feel like I can understand and connect with the author or artist better because I see changes in growth and trajectory.

[annamargot]

I’d love to hear more about this approach. Could you expand on the process in your second paragraph?

Also would love to hear how that process informs the experiences mentioned in your third paragraph.

[ChipSkylark]

Sure. I came up with this method on my own but I'm sure someone else has already tried something similar and documented it.

Take a piece of paper (or google doc) and put a theme or idea in a single sentence or line of text at the top. Then write a chunk (I'd say 5-10 sentences, but it's arbitrary) below in whatever style naturally comes to you first. Re-read it and note any obvious characteristics about it that jump out at you (e.g. it reads like a research paper, it uses colloquial language, sentences pack a lot of information, my diction is terse, etc - whatever). Then you write a new white space-separated chunk below it where you play with a completely new style, or maybe go in the the opposite direction of something you noticed in the last chunk (be more blunt and terse when your last chunk was long and dense, or maybe introduce fun abstractions and colorful analogy when the last chunk reads like an arXiv paper).

Once you feel ready to consolidate it, re-read them and cherry-pick things from each chunk that feel right to you as the writer and synthesize the text into a final piece you are happy with. I'd say you should also timebox consolidation so you actually have something workable in a timely manner. Often times I find that this method creates a balanced style for me, because it is my best effort at emulating my favorite style to read - a style where I never feel like I have the writer "figured out".

Bear in mind that this is a completely arbitrary approach and is just how I like to do things. I came up with it from musicianship where you develop your own style by emulating one person, then another, then you have a bag of tricks to pull from when it comes time to decide who you want to be as a creator. Your style may change over time, and I think this method allows it to evolve based on what feels right to you vs. just following what has always worked or what others seem to be happy with.