The success of Scott Alexander (AKA Scott Siskind) seems unlikely. He’s done everything we’re told you shouldn’t do when writing on the internet. His essays are frighteningly long. His language is not simple. And he doesn’t have a personal brand, exactly. He does cluster around a few subjects repeatedly—psychiatry and political philosophy, for example—but he also does whatever the fuck he wants to. When his whim dictates, he’ll pen surreal stories about psychedelic cacti, dole out advice to Republicans, or tackle tricky philosophical questions with comic dialogues.
This feels sort of mean to say, but when Scott started posting the book reviews by his readers, the biggest thing that stood out to me about the reviews by far was how much worse written they all were than Scott's stuff. I kept thinking "this sounds like a fascinating book but I wish Scott had written this review and not whoever you are." Really made me appreciate even more so than before how good his writing is.
A good intro! I’m pretty convinced that most of what people learn about “writing”, especially in high school and on the internet, is dead wrong. It’s both very contextual and dependent on the topic and very complicated and unique to the writer, and all sorts of fashions and options and poorly thought out rules and useless structural ideas get taken as good advice.
Basically, there are always people for whom the opposite of any given advice is more appropriate. (And tragically, we probably are built to seek out the advice we don't need. E.g., people who are self-destructively selfish gravitate towards reading books on Objectivism and people who are self-destructively altruistic gravitate towards reading books on being generous when in reality they should swap bookshelves).
I suspect this at least somewhat applies to things like writing advice. Some people need to kill their darlings and write more clearly. And others need to add more voice and occasional use intricate prose. The high school writing advice is designed for where people are more likely to be at and so will help get everyone serviceable. Good teachers should be on the lookout for kids where the opposite advice is warranted.
This feels sort of mean to say, but when Scott started posting the book reviews by his readers, the biggest thing that stood out to me about the reviews by far was how much worse written they all were than Scott's stuff. I kept thinking "this sounds like a fascinating book but I wish Scott had written this review and not whoever you are." Really made me appreciate even more so than before how good his writing is.
I should have realized that calling him 'the rightful calling him 'the rightful Caliph' wasn't a unique idea on my part. :(
A good intro! I’m pretty convinced that most of what people learn about “writing”, especially in high school and on the internet, is dead wrong. It’s both very contextual and dependent on the topic and very complicated and unique to the writer, and all sorts of fashions and options and poorly thought out rules and useless structural ideas get taken as good advice.
Scott has an essay on this :)
The Rule of Equal and Opposite Advice
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/03/24/should-you-reverse-any-advice-you-hear/
Basically, there are always people for whom the opposite of any given advice is more appropriate. (And tragically, we probably are built to seek out the advice we don't need. E.g., people who are self-destructively selfish gravitate towards reading books on Objectivism and people who are self-destructively altruistic gravitate towards reading books on being generous when in reality they should swap bookshelves).
I suspect this at least somewhat applies to things like writing advice. Some people need to kill their darlings and write more clearly. And others need to add more voice and occasional use intricate prose. The high school writing advice is designed for where people are more likely to be at and so will help get everyone serviceable. Good teachers should be on the lookout for kids where the opposite advice is warranted.
Damn if only there is a table of all the major opposites...