Day 26
Writing is a skill. In here I send notes of my writing from the 50 days of writing course by David Perell, to reflect, develop and build my writing style.
In the 26th email form the 50 days of writing, David Perell talks about the work that we are feigning in to make one article will be overlooked.
Elegance is the end result of hard work, not the starting point. Strive to make your work so invisible that the reader thinks they could have written what you published.
David states that most of the greatest work is great because they eliminated things that are unnecessary to the reader, consumer.
He gives three examples:
- iPhone hides thousands of hours of hard work with just three buttons in the bottom .
- Chris Rock's Netflix special is the countless performances at these smaller clubs to better his delivery and content.
- Many writer who write everything and the start the deletion process in the final draft.
My thoughts:
I have recently watched the Rich Roll's podcast with James Clear and he mentions he wrote 43000 (approx.) pages and scaled it down to 250 page book.
It is not because those are not important but it is to help us readers understand easily.
I even watched the podcast of Joe Rogan with Kevin Hart, where he mentions his ritual of entire year testing his jokes and a lot of how he produces his stand up. If you haven't watched the episode - Check it out.
Writers have to realize that removal of few pages or lines is the most important part as the article is for writers not for us.
I realized this after trying to write for one year and that is when I took the 50 days of writing.
We have to be okay with removing the lines and pages that are unnecessary to the reader. We need to make our readers feel as if they can write it just like this, we have done our part splendidly. Think of it this way, we filter the tea every time we pour it into our glass, to not have any tea leaves in our tea.
Hans Hoffman once said:
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
Key takeaways:
- Removal of lines that are unnecessary is the important part.
- Keeping it to the point and crisp so it provides a seamless reading experience for the reader must be our ultimate goal (example: Paul Graham).
- Elegance is the end result of hard work, not the starting point.
Thank you for reading.
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