Effective Writing as a Moat
Three actionable takeaways and eighteen tips to get through to your readers in 2021 (..and beyond)
Writing, like Trainspotting, is a craft. And people respect those who’re masters of their crafts.
That is.. unless the craft is watching trains pass by.
That’s just weird.
1. The Goal Of This Article
In the last two years, I’ve come across a handful of internet writers who’ve made a large impact on how I approach written communication.
So, earlier this year, I read half a dozen resources on writing and analyzed over 350 writeups to identify the elements that had me nodding along by the time I’d finished reading them.
This article is a summary of my learnings from the analysis of two such people: Manas & Sugandha. Some of the pazzaz also comes from the other resources I’ve listed in the last section of the article.
2. Top 3 Takeaways Upfront
- Make your writing self-containing.
- Be sincere, it shows.
- Top-down writing rules.. in most cases.
We’ll revisit these takeaways later in the post with more nuance.
3. Why Write More Effectively
There’s no coming back from working remotely and asynchronously once you’ve tasted it. It gives you the freedom to build a fuller life, to work with talent that’s geographically unreachable, and even maximize productivity in your own special way.
However, it also changes the workplace dynamics significantly. Writing and documentation become of prime importance as real-time and in-person meetings vanish (two such examples: Sahil & Julie).
As the title of the article reads, I’ll go as far as to posit that effective writing is a moat in and by itself.
4. What Is Effective Writing?
Effective writing is not good or excellent or interesting. It’s whatever it needs to be to get through to the reader, to influence them.
When you pitch an idea to the leadership, your goal is to convince them of its viability. And you make it more effective by including extant and new research.
When you document what you’re building, your goal is to be clear, instructional, and enable its reproduction. And you make it more effective by being methodical and including the rationale behind each step.
When you write a press release, your goal (one of them) is to persuade potential customers to buy your new product. And you make it more effective by conveying to them the value and the potential of the product.
Note: Persuading somebody is not the same as convincing them, that’s the first lesson I’ve learned in my short career. Even so, both require you to be effective, in writing or in person.
The takeaways below have been vetted for by both Manas & Sugandha. They graciously shared detailed feedback on it to make it even better.
5. Learnings from Manas
Background: Manas is a PM Lead at Gojek who tweets actively and maintains a personal blog at manassaloi.com. He’s always got a great take on Product Management and is somewhat of a shitposting veteran in the Startup Twitter circle. We’ll not be focusing on the latter (today). Manas writes 10-12 blogs every month on products, productivity, Product Management, and Web 3.0 amongst many other things.
Effectiveness: Manas optimizes for clarity and novelty over immaculate articulation. He’s great at getting his argument through and I frequently find myself changing my mind over things that I earlier disagreed on, after reading his blog posts. You may want to check out his incredibly useful repositories on Product Management (LUMOS & ARISTOS).
Corpus
Read: 298 (±5)
Shortlist
Shortlisted: 39
(Not every write-up is suitable for analysis. It has to be long enough, complete, and literary in nature to be analyzed)
Actionable Takeaways
- Find your Writing-Audience Fit (WAF).
Writing is like finding your Product-Market Fit. If everything you write is for everybody, you risk conveying nothing no anybody. - Unless you’re David Foster Wallace, optimize for lucidity.
Clarity of expression influences readers more than complex language ever has. - Delineate ideas clearly.
Two separate ideas shouldn’t bleed into each other, it’s detrimental to the comprehensibility of the writeup. - Improve readability by breaking large paragraphs down into smaller chunks.
It’s that simple. - Each sentence, on its own, should make perfect sense in the entire picture. The other way is a slippery slope.
- Know when to take the top-down writing approach.
The structure of your write-up plays a pivotal role in its effectiveness and retention amongst the readers. - Watch your tone, it influences the reader massively.
Eg. When your explanation/reasoning starts sounding like a justification, it’s a big red flag. - Empathize. Give your audience what they want, not what you think they should want. This work IRL too: with friendships, parenting, mentorship. There’s nuance to it, probably for some other time.
- You can’t provide complete value if you give out an incomplete story. If you want to paywall the insights, paywall the entire blogpost.
- Even if you’re critiquing something as simple as a ball, treat each variable individually while controlling for the rest. Too many times I’ve found great write-ups cherrypicking arguments to use confirmation bias as a tool.
Writing Samples
Recommended Reads
- Lessons from Manas’s first year of PMship
- Leveraging funding to grow Business
- On Negotiating
- On Biases
- Strong opinions, weakly held — my personal favorite
- Analyzing Swiggy and FoodPanda
- Life Principles
6. Learnings from Sugandha
Background: Sugandha is a PM at Eightfold.ai who writes about products, paradigms, writing, and education amongst other things on LinkedIn. She also keeps a personal blog at https://www.manicpixelworld.com/. During her undergrad, she started and ran a satire website, News That Matters Not, which continued until 2016. Her straight-shooter writing on LinkedIn belies her years of experience in satirical writing. Sugandha is an experienced PM and has worked at Netflix and EA prior to Eightfold. Here’s her Quora.
Effectiveness: Optimizing for un-equivocacy, Sugandha always gets straight to the point. Philosophy aside, Sugandha is one of the most articulate PMs I’ve seen. She uses the language to its best potential and uses it to deliver her takes persuadingly that would otherwise come off as quite controversial.
Corpus
Read: 60
Shortlist
Shortlisted: 34
(Not every write-up is suitable for analysis. It has to be long enough, complete, and literary in nature to be analyzed)
Actionable Takeaways
- Make your writeups more objective.
Your readers expect your write-up to have a point, especially if it’s part of a formal setting. Do not end it with “thoughts??” - Minimize assumptions and generalizations.
Write cogently, leaving little or no room for misinterpretation. - Know your fundamental values.
Contradictions induce cognitive dissonance, even when they’re not very apparent. - Each individual component of the write-up should be self-containing. They should reconcile at the end, but each one should also serve a purpose on their own.
- Learn better phrasing and use punctuation. Long sentences don’t have to be uninteresting or confusing. Use your knowledge of the language to influence the reader.
- No subversion. While it is a great literary tool for creative writing, it’s counterproductive if you’re optimizing for clarity. Several slight nudges, say over a paragraph, work better than one sudden 180-degree turn. Throw subversion & sensationalism out of the window.
- Be sincere! If you’re speculating, make it clear. You’re not writing an op-ed (unless you are). Stand behind everything you write and use unequivocal language. I’ve tagged (internally) way too many internet writers as sensationalists, cherry-pickers, panderers, or liars. I don’t read them anymore.
- Develop your own style. Some people use rhetorics to segue between sections, while others use associative reasoning. Find out what you like and give it a personal touch. Part of the charm of reading somebody over and over is their unique style, take @noampomsky or @slatestartcodex for example. Feel free to use a little bit of lingo.
Writing Samples
Recommended Reads
7. Conclusion: Top 3 Takeaways Revisited
1/ Make your writing self-containing.
- Delineate ideas, they shouldn’t bleed into each other.
- Find your WAF (not waifu).
- Each element, recursively, should make sense in the larger picture.
Eg. every word should fit the context of the sentence, every sentence should fit the paragraph, and every paragraph should add to the overall narrative - Don’t put too many out-links, you’re not creating a repository (unless you are).
2/ Be sincere, it shows.
- Give your audience what they want, not what you think they should want.
- You can’t provide the complete value with an incomplete story.
- Don’t lie (even by omission).
3/ Top-down writing approach rules.. in most cases.
- Let the audience know what they’re in for before they commit their attention to you. They’ll come back for me.
- It also works well for teaching, pitching, making speeches, and data storytelling.
