Paul Graham：Good Writing, Excerpt 5

But other times they're more subtle, and you need longer, more complicated sentences to tease out all the implications. An essay is a cleaned up train of thought, in the same way dialogue is cleaned up conversation, and a train of thought has a natural rhythm. So when an essay sounds good, it's not merely because it has a pleasing rhythm, but because it has its natural one. Which means you can use getting the rhythm right as a heuristic for getting the ideas right. And not just in principle: good writers do both simultaneously as a matter of course. Often I don't even distinguish between the two problems. I just think Ugh, this doesn't sound right; what do I mean to say here?

Source： https://paulgraham.com/goodwriting.html
Locator：Essay, additional excerpt 5 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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