flâneur

My guide to writing an essay that doesn't suck

theintrinsicperspective.com · 1,738 words · saved by 1 readers

Muay Thai but for words

A perennial question: “Do you have any advice on how to be a better writer?” My usual answer: “Don’t be a writer at all! Don’t do it unless you can’t do anything else, unless you’re terribly in love with language, and unless you don’t care if you’re replaced by AI in five years.” That’s an obviously bad answer. So the purpose of this post is to give a less facetious and pessimistic answer and offer a more practical and hopeful one, which is primarily that what we call “good writing” is more about avoiding predictable mistakes than it is about aiming for a particular target. Being a good…

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