Matt: A Better Writer

RIP Scott Adams. Early Dilbert was the first cartoon I fell in love with, and early dilbert.com was one of the first websites I remember visiting. My dad would print out cartoons and put them on his cubicle wall. Between the Dilbert comics, books, 2600, and Wired, I was swimming between what felt like a radical transgressive world online and the reality of my dad putting on a suit and tie every day and working a giant cubicle farm programming computers.

It’s probably underappreciated how Dilbert (and Office Space) made millions of better managers by making fun and teaching people what not to do.

Scott could put in a few words things that could transform the way you think, reframe the world. One of his classics, from a now-gone Typepad blog, was The Day You Became A Better Writer, which I’ll reproduce here:

I went from being a bad writer to a good writer after taking a one-day course in “business writing.” I couldn’t believe how simple it was. I’ll tell you the main tricks here so you don’t have to waste a day in class.

Business writing is about clarity and persuasion. The main technique is keeping things simple. Simple writing is persuasive. A good argument in five sentences will sway more people than a brilliant argument in a hundred sentences. Don’t fight it.

Simple means getting rid of extra words. Don’t write, “He was very happy” when you can write “He was happy.” You think the word “very” adds something. It doesn’t. Prune your sentences.

Humor writing is a lot like business writing. It needs to be simple. The main difference is in the choice of words. For humor, don’t say “drink” when you can say “swill.”

Your first sentence needs to grab the reader. Go back and read my first sentence to this post. I rewrote it a dozen times. It makes you curious. That’s the key.

Write short sentences. Avoid putting multiple thoughts in one sentence. Readers aren’t as smart as you’d think.

Learn how brains organize ideas. Readers comprehend “the boy hit the ball” quicker than “the ball was hit by the boy.” Both sentences mean the same, but it’s easier to imagine the object (the boy) before the action (the hitting). All brains work that way. (Notice I didn’t say, “That is the way all brains work”?)

That’s it. You just learned 80% of the rules of good writing. You’re welcome.

Powerful. Profound.

Scott also said some not-great things, as the obituary notes. I’ll share something I posted internally at Automattic.

When I was younger, I used to have a more binary view of people, but as I’ve grown, read a ton of biographies, seen the press cycles, and been lucky enough to meet some idols and villains, I’ve become much more comfortable taking everyone as a flawed human being.
I admire or learn from aspects, but that doesn’t mean I would 100% agree with everything. I don’t even 100% agree with my past self!
One thing you’ll note in a lot of biographies is that people who have accomplished great achievements often have flaws or mistakes in equal measure.

Take what lessons you like from people.

I love reading and writing about writing, and improving your writing is one of the best force multipliers for everything else you do in life. If you’d like to go further on this, the best book I’ve read on the subject is On Writing Well by William Zinsser. And if you want more Scott Adams, read this piece from his doppelgänger Scott Alexander.