Zen in the art of writing

What Hacker News says

1. fractallyteFeb 2025
   I looked at your demo video, and website.

   A game is like a story or movie, or any other creative work: foremost, you need a vision; and then a way of communicating it effectively to an audience.

   The design, mechanics, and marketing are just functional details - essential, of course, but pointless without that overarching vision.

   Your vision should be powerful, purposeful, and exciting (to you). It's more than just an 'idea'; there should be feelings associated with it (urgency, mystery, thrills, whatever) and a sense of a consistent inner 'story'. It fuels the passion that drives you to solve a series of problems that lead to game creation.

   A relevant short essay: "Drunk, and in Charge of a Bicycle" by Ray Bradbury. (And probably the rest of the essays in his book, "Zen in the Art of Writing"...)

   (Note: I have a game in the iOS App Store)

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2. zebomonAug 2023
   All excellent recommendations. I would add to these, Bird by Bird and Zen in the Art of Writing.
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3. rubinelliSep 2018
   "Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity" is a short book that anyone that has any interest in Ray Bradbury's work or in fiction writing should read.

   "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg and "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert Cialdini are both books that showed how and why you often act against your best interest.

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4. mindcrimeAug 2015
   Stephen King said something like "To become a better writer, write a lot and read a lot". Here's a couple of articles that discuss that idea more:

   http://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/dreamgates/2011/06/read-...

   http://writetodone.com/how-to-use-reading-to-become-a-better...

   Beyond that, there are, of course, tons of books for writers, including some specifically for tech writers. A lot of what you'll find on the shelf at, say, Barnes & Noble is about fiction writing, but then again, to some extent you could say that good writing is good writing regardless of whether it's fiction or non-fiction. I don't claim to be a great writer, but I can share a few titles from my own bookshelf on writing:

   1. The Elements of Style - Strunk & White

   2. On Writing Well - William Zinsser

   3. NLP For Writers - Bekki Hill

   4. A Certain 'Je Ne Sais Quoi' - Chloe Rhodes

   5. A Manual For Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations - Kate L. Turabian

   6. The Elements of Technical Writing - Gary Blake & Robert W. Bly

   7. The Art of Scientific Writing - Ebel, Bliefert, Russey

   8. Writers Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing - Michelle Rubert (ed.)

   9. On Writing - Stephen King

   10. Zen In The Art of Writing - Ray Bradbury

   11. Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss

   12. Where Do You Get Your Ideas - Fred White

   13. The Complete Guide to Article Writing - Naveed Saleh

   14. HBR Guide To Better Business Writing - Bryan A. Garner

   15. Make A Scene - Jordan E. Rosenfeld

   16. Beginnings, Middles, & Ends - Nancy Kress

   I'm also a big believer in having a strong vocabulary, even though I don't try to write in a pretentious, sesquipedalian fashion very often. But sometimes it helps to have that "just right" word available. To that end, I recommend:

   17. Big Words You Should Know - David Olsen, Michelle Bevilacqua and Justin Cord Hayes

   18. The Words You Should Know To Sound Smart - Robert W. Bly

   19. The Dictionary of Difficult Words - John Ayto

   20. Rogets Thesaurus of Words For Intellectuals - David Olsen, Michelle Bevilacqua, and Justin Cord Hayes

   21. The Thinker's Thesaurus - Peter E. Meltzer

   22. Fiske Word Power - Fiske, Mallison, Mandell

   23. The Well Spoken Thesaurus - Tom Heehler

   24. They Have A Word For It - Howard Rheingold

   and remember, as Aldous Huxley said "The proper study of mankind is books". And on that note, may I recommend keeping a couple of books of quotations around. A good quote can be quite useful.

   25. Mark My Words - Great Quotations and the Stories Behind Them - Nigel Rees

   26. The Giant Book of American Quotations - Carruth & Ehrlich

   as for websites and blogs and what-not, there is a technical writing subreddit:

   http://technicalwriting.reddit.com

   and https://writing.reddit.com

   and

   https://writinghub.reddit.com

   You also can't go wrong studying the essays of George Orwell

   http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/index_en

   And I think that's about all I have to contribute, except to reiterate "write a lot, read a lot".

   Source: I have no particular distinction as a writer, but I have managed to get a few articles published at InfoWorld: http://www.infoworld.com/author/Phil-Rhodes/ and I've written quite a few blog posts for my full-time employer, like: http://mammothdata.com/big-data-open-source-risk-managment/ and I have written most of the content on the Fogbeam company blog: http://fogbeam.blogspot.com I like to think that if I keep reading and writing, I might actually acquire some skill at it some day.

   HTH, YMMV, IANAL, WTFBBQ, ETC.

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5. jmdukeJun 2012
   We've lost a brilliant voice.

   My favorite quote of his, from "Zen in the Art of Writing":

   "And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all."

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