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A taxonomy of what writers do: integrate, distill, expand, extend

10 tweets · July 2019 · 8 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter

Found myself thinking about different kinds of thinker/writers today, inspired by this exchange with @FateOfTwist_

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean ·

@FateOfTwist_ @RivalVoices @meditationstuff MOAR SYNTHESIS! I feel sad in relation to how many people just read & regurgitate models/practices, rather than constantly trying to integrate them all together like I do. (There are others who do this but it's surprisingly rare even among people whose thinking I like.)

and then by seeing @visakanv saying "a big part of why I write is so I can think clearly without all of the inelegant clutter of (most) other people’s words, and models. It’s an act of compression. and thinking huh, this is a different yet valuable thing

Visakan Veerasamy @visakanv ·

this thread also makes me realise is that a big part of why I write is so I can think clearly without all of the inelegant clutter of (most) other people’s words, and models. It’s an act of compression. My goal is often to reproduce signal with less noise

[video]

And now I'm like "hmm I want a taxonomy of different roles that writers play in their writing". For instance, I generally aspire to integrate models with each other and/or with experiences I've had, to say new things. "What does X look like through lens of Y?"

Integrating is I think a little different than something more like "connecting" or "collecting" which are more just saying "these are related" but aren't seeking to precisely say how. I do lots of this too.

Others aspire to distill: in that thread, Visa describes how he isn't just summarizing one article or book but reading a ton of different things and then sharing only the best & juiciest bits.

Others expand and flesh out. I think there was a guy who wrote a book on how to use @Evernote (no, not @fortelabs). Can imagine that as turning a few basic how-tos or feature manuals into really in-depth instructions. And I think they hired him? concept → short-story → novel

Others aspire to elaborate or extend. "Okay, so if this model is true, that would imply..." "What happens if we take this idea seriously?"

What else? I just threw this thread together, so surely my categories are totally incomplete and also ill-defined. Maybe some sort of Clarifier can come along and clean it up...

Also interested in which of these purposes you resonate with, and who you think really exemplifies the other types. And are there better ways to phrase the motivations here?

Ha, delightful, @Mellow_Mizz made his own version of this, Extending it in the process:

Mellow Mizz @Mellow_Mizz ·

1/ So far, you have described 4 categories (which I've re-ordered intentionally): 1. Distill - Reviewing many explanations of an idea and producing 1 shorter in length; e.g. 2 books becomes 1 profound Tweet

quoting @Malcolm_Ocean: What else? I just threw this thread together, so surely my categories are totally incomplete and also ill-defined. Maybe some sort of Clarifier can come along and clean it up...