My favorite book on writing is Stein on Writing, which has advice for both fiction and non-fiction writing. Possibly the two most important points of his are that non-fiction should not be dry, and that you should ideally grab your reader's curiosity from the very first sentence. If that doesn't work, then at least from the very first paragraph. That's more important than ever online, where the reader can always find something more interesting to read if an article seems boring. (I don't follow this advice nearly as often as I should.)
Here are some of his examples on good non-fiction, excerpted from real articles:
When it comes to shopping for a computer, the most important peripheral runs at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit and is known as a friend.
Here on a stony meadow in West Texas at the end of 10 miles of unpaved road through mesquite-covered, coyote-infested shurb land, several hundred bearers of a strategic commodity of the United States of America are gathered.
They are goats.As the 155-millimeter howitzer shells whistled down on this crumbling city today, exploding into buildings all around, a disheveled stubble-bearded man in formal evening attire unfolded a plastic chair in the middle of Vase Miskina Street. He lifted his cello from its case and began playing Albinoni's Adagio.
Repetition is sometimes a useful technique:
Yesterday morning Henry Sorbino walked into the K-Mart on Eleventh Street carrying an umbrella and walked out carrying an umbrella and someone else's purse.
Adding color can be done subtly - note the one word that makes this sentence more interesting:
At exactly 10:19 A.M. yesterday, a grandmother's purse on a conveyor belt at Orange Country airport set off an alarm that caused two security guards to rush to the scene.
An otherwise uninteresting piece of news can be made more interesting with an eye for detail:
Carl Gardhof, his head held high as if he had done nothing wrong, was sentenced in Superior Court to eighteen months in jail this morning.
Note how much better the preceeding sentence works than if we'd used the cliché of "maintaining his innocence".
The real subject of the next story was the suspension of auto union talks because workers were loath to chip in for health care costs:
Since learning last year that he had multiple sclerosis, Andy Torok has become less and less steady on his feet, and his worries have accumulated along with the hand prints on his apartment's white walls.
An obit or memorial piece doesn't have to be dull:
Andy Warhol, draftsman of shoes, is dead, and the people viewing his remains are mostly wearing scuffed white sneakers.
A year after his death, the recurring image I associate with Raymond Carver is one of people leaning toward him, working very hard at the act of listening.
Nor does the opening of an autobiography:
Many problems confront an autobiographer, and I am confident that I have not solved them.
I see no reason why the reader should be interested in my private life.
note the one word that makes this sentence more interesting:
At exactly 10:19 A.M. yesterday, a grandmother's purse on a conveyor belt at Orange Country airport set off an alarm that caused two security guard's to rush to the scene.
Is it the word left out after "guard's"? Because, man, it really makes me want to know what two things of the security guard rushed to the scene.
The topics of rationality and existential risk reduction need their own Richard Dawkins. Their own Darwin. Their own Voltaire.
Rhetoric moves minds.
Students and masochists aside, people read only what is exciting. So: Want to make an impact? Be exciting. You must be heard before you can turn heads in the right direction.
Thus, I've decided to try harder and actually put effort into the quality of my writing instead of just cranking stuff out quickly so I can fill in inferential gaps and get to the cutting edge of the research subjects I care about.
That's why I asked LWers for their picks of best nonfiction writing on Less Wrong.
It's also why I've been reading lots of good science writing, focusing on those who manage to be exciting while covering fairly complex subjects: Dawkins, Sagan, Gleick, Zimmer, Shermer, Ramachandran, Roach, Sacks, Hawking, Greene, Hofstadter, Penrose, Wilson, Feynman, Kaku, Gould, Bryson, Pinker, Kurzban, and others.
I've also been re-reading lots of books and articles on how to write well: Keys to Great Writing, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, Elements of Style, On Writing Well, The Classic Guide to Better Writing, The Book on Writing, Telling True Stories, Writing Tools, Ideas into Words, The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science, A Field Guide for Science Writers, Six Rules for Rewriting, Writing, Briefly, and Singularity Writing Advice. (Conversations with Eliezer also helped.)
I don't know if I can become the Voltaire of rationality and existential risk reduction, but it seems worth a shot. Every improvement in writing style is beneficial even if my starry goal is never met. Also, it appears I produce better writing without really trying than most people produce with trying. (If you've ever had to grade essays by honors English seniors, you'll know what I mean.) I expect to gain more by striving where I already excel than by pushing where I have little natural talent.
(I won't try to write everything well. Sometimes I should just crank things out. To be honest, I didn't spend much time optimizing this post.)
My other hope is that a few other writers decide they would like to be the Voltaire of rationality and/or existential risk reduction. May this post be useful to them. It's a list of recommendations on writing style pulled from many sources, in no particular order.
And, just one piece of process advice. Do not apply any of these rules while drafting. Instead, write down whatever horrible shit comes out of you and do it quickly. Then revise, revise, revise.
Now: What are your favorite pieces of writing advice?