William Fitzpatrick

Day job: English professor, Nonfiction writing coach;
Building: Writer Science—Studying the art and science of expert writing, sharing what I learn

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

https://t.co/4LCw33ICHP

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@ashleybchae The problem with this genre of writing advice is that it doesn't tell us how to do this. Telling a writer to write simply is like telling a baseball player to hit the ball squarely.

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

If you want to argue that AI outputs are language, you need to imagine that they have intention.

To see that AI outputs are not language, imagine waves wash up on shore and recede, revealing the following shapes in the sand: To be or not to be, That is the question.

Would you consider this language?

Of course not, because these shapes in the sand lack the only thing that counts in language: intention.

[Matthew Schmitz @matthewschmitz]

Human beings have lost their monopoly on language
https://t.co/wZkzPUbOxA

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@matthewschmitz @compactmag Imagine waves wash up on shore and recede to reveal patterns in the sand in the following shape: To be or not to be, That is the question.
Would you consider this language? Why not?
Because it lacks the only thing that counts in language: intention.

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@paulg Clear writing is a small set of skills that are easy to learn.

Here I've collected 9 of the highest leverage ones—3 each at the levels of the sentence, the paragraph, and the idea. https://t.co/iSvyMm96YH

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

https://t.co/4LCw33ICHP

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@justinskycak Indeed. But if you want to learn to write, where do you start?

Most of what’s on offer is just a list of mindless rules (avoid passives and adverbs, write short sentences), which ignores the needs of specific readers.

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

https://t.co/1cg5ODgA1o

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

Substack solipsism is the consequence of ‘write for yourself’

Write for readers

[Benjamin Bratton @bratton]

Nonfiction essay as Agency Theater

“It is estimated that roughly 70% to 80% of all Substack accounts have fewer than 10 to 20 regular readers outside of the author's immediate social circle.”

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@getpaidwrite This kind of writing advice misleads writers.

Don’t worry about wroting rules; worry about creating value for specific readers.
https://t.co/RN5IoLIiLs

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

https://t.co/1cg5ODgA1o

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@p_millerd In Tibetan Buddhism there’s a lineage known as crazy wisdom where the teacher does basically this: upends their expectations again and again until they get hit with the beatific vision like a bucket of cold water

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@majamediaco This is great, would be complemented by Summons of Love by Mari Ruti, a Lacanian who draws on his ‘truth of desire’ to argue that desire comes from the deepest, most true part of oneself. Illuminating interview with her on Sean Carroll’s podcast

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@james_riney Hey James, I’m a developmental editor and English professor with 10+ years experience, living next door in South Korea too, happy to help

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@jamesjyu @ninabegus Pre-ordered my copy yesterday, looking forward!

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

Membership will open up towards the end of summer, once we nail down a format and rhythm that works.

Til then I’ve been sending updates and insights from the discussions weekly on Writer Science, the free newsletter for writers who care about readers https://t.co/ld11L76Bd6

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

Book clubs for essays: I’ve been running one online for the past few weeks with a small group of nonfiction writers, it’s been great.

Yesterday we read The Goon Squad, the Harper’s essay that won best feature in the national magazine awards

[maja 🔭🍒 @majamediaco]

something i’d love to host one day: a Substack supper club

an evening of reading, dinner and discussion. like a book club, but with essays. a few pieces sent beforehand, then everyone gathers around a table to talk about what the essays open up

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

Focus of the discussions is on craft: instead of talking about what the essay makes us think or feel, we analyze craft, asking how it does whatever work it did on us

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@ebarenholtz If you haven’t already, you must read The Kekulé Problem by Cormac McCarthy

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@LynAldenContact Podcasts should be thought of as a down-funnel relationship-nurturing genre, like a newsletter. No sensational, vitality-chasing packaging, no third-party sponsorships, no ads; just updates and conversations with someone the listener is already interested in.

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@PerellClips Agree, “write for yourself” solves writer’s block, and writers love the slogan because they hate the idea of audience capture. But it produces micro-memoir and Substack solipsism.

If readers can’t use your text, you’re journaling, not writing.

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

"Write for yourself" is decent starter advice. But it misleads writers and causes a lot of bad writing.

The function of nonfiction writing is not to communicate your ideas; it's to change the ideas of your readers.

Everything—from topic to word choice—flows from that function.

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

Just aim to balance the four strands of language learning:

1) start with comprehensible input (reading and listening to stories, 98% should be comprehensible, only 4-5 words in 100 should be unfamiliar);

2) memorize useful vocabulary using flash cards (Anki is great). Use frequency lists and Zipf’s law to ensure that the items you study give you the best coverage. Some grammar practice can be helpful, but don’t make too much of it; you absorb most of it through input.

3) fluency practice, means getting faster at using what you already know. Practice using the language under time pressure, not focusing at all on correctness, only on volume

4) meaning-focused output: using all the language you’ve developed in previous stages, practice using it in meaningful exchange. Record it with your phone, review your mistakes or ask for feedback, and use that to select your next round of input

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@TheKoreaHerald Spotted this at a local market in Korea

[William Fitzpatrick @WriterScience]

@kasratweets @nopranablem Reminds me of what Franzen wrote of Alice Munro