Putting Ideas into Words
Paul Graham argues that writing is not merely recording pre-existing thoughts, but a rigorous process that tests, completes, and generates ideas. He notes that first drafts are invariably wrong, that half the ideas in an essay emerge during writing, and that reading one's own work as a stranger reveals gaps and imprecision. While formal domains like chess allow purely mental refinement, most complex ideas require the strict test of committing to an optimal sequence of words. He asserts that anyone who hasn't written about a topic has no fully formed ideas about it, and those who never write have none about anything nontrivial. This short essay is a compelling read for engineers and thinkers who rely on deep understanding and clear communication.
February 2022Writing about something, even something you know well, usually shows you that you didn't know it as well as you thought. Putting ideas into words is a severe test. The first words you choose are usually wrong; you have to rewrite sentences over and over to get them exactly right. And your ideas won't just be imprecise, but incomplete too. Half the ideas that end up in an essay will be ones you thought of while you were writing it. Indeed, that's why I write them.
2022年2月。写关于某件事，即使是自己熟知的事情，通常会让你发现，你并不像自己以为的那样了解它。将想法付诸文字是一项严峻的考验。最初选择的词语通常是错的；你必须一遍又一遍地重写句子，直到它们完全正确。而且，你的想法不仅不精确，还不完整。最终出现在文章里的一半想法，都是你在写作过程中才想到的。事实上，这就是我写作的原因。
Once you publish something, the convention is that whatever you wrote was what you thought before you wrote it. These were your ideas, and now you've expressed them. But you know this isn't true. You know that putting your ideas into words changed them. And not just the ideas you published. Presumably there were others that turned out to be too broken to fix, and those you discarded instead.
一旦你发表了某篇文章，约定俗成的看法是，你写下的内容就是你在写作之前所想的东西。这些都是你的想法，现在你表达出来了。但你知道事实并非如此。你知道将想法付诸文字改变了它们。而且不仅仅是发表了的想法。大概还有一些想法因为残缺得无法修复而被你舍弃了。
It's not just having to commit your ideas to specific words that makes writing so exacting. The real test is reading what you've written. You have to pretend to be a neutral reader who knows nothing of what's in your head, only what you wrote. When he reads what you wrote, does it seem correct? Does it seem complete? If you make an effort, you can read your writing as if you were a complete stranger, and when you do the news is usually bad. It takes me many cycles before I can get an essay past the stranger. But the stranger is rational, so you always can, if you ask him what he needs. If he's not satisfied because you failed to mention x or didn't qualify some sentence sufficiently, then you mention x or add more qualifications. Happy now? It may cost you some nice sentences, but you have to resign yourself to that. You just have to make them as good as you can and still satisfy the stranger.
写作之所以如此严苛，并不只是因为必须将想法落实到具体的词语。真正的考验是阅读你写下的内容。你必须假装自己是一个中立的读者，对你头脑中的想法一无所知，只知道你写下的文字。当他读到你写的东西时，它看起来正确吗？看起来完整吗？如果你愿意努力，你可以像陌生人一样阅读自己的作品，而当你这样做时，结果通常很糟糕。我常常要经过许多轮修改，才能让一篇文章通过陌生人的检验。但陌生人很理性，所以只要你问他需要什么，总能让通过。如果他不满意是因为你没有提及X或没有充分限定某些句子，那么你就提及X或添加更多限定。现在满意了吗？这可能会牺牲一些漂亮的句子，但你必须接受这一点。你只能尽力写出最好的句子，同时满足陌生人的要求。
This much, I assume, won't be that controversial. I think it will accord with the experience of anyone who has tried to write about anything nontrivial. There may exist people whose thoughts are so perfectly formed that they just flow straight into words. But I've never known anyone who could do this, and if I met someone who said they could, it would seem evidence of their limitations rather than their ability. Indeed, this is a trope in movies: the guy who claims to have a plan for doing some difficult thing, and who when questioned further, taps his head and says "It's all up here." Everyone watching the movie knows what that means. At best the plan is vague and incomplete. Very likely there's some undiscovered flaw that invalidates it completely. At best it's a plan for a plan.
我想，这一点应该不会有什么争议。它符合任何尝试过写非琐碎内容的人的经验。也许有些人想法如此完美，以至于它们直接流淌成文字。但我从未见过能做到这一点的人，如果我遇到有人声称能做到，那反而证明了他们的局限性，而非能力。事实上，这是电影中的一种经典桥段：某人声称有一个做某件难事的计划，当被进一步追问时，他拍拍头说“都在这里了”。看这部电影的每个人都知道那意味着什么。最好的情况下，计划是模糊且不完整的。很可能有某个未发现的缺陷完全使其无效。充其量它只是一个计划的计划。
In precisely defined domains it's possible to form complete ideas in your head. People can play chess in their heads, for example. And mathematicians can do some amount of math in their heads, though they don't seem to feel sure of a proof over a certain length till they write it down. But this only seems possible with ideas you can express in a formal language. [1] Arguably what such people are doing is putting ideas into words in their heads. I can to some extent write essays in my head. I'll sometimes think of a paragraph while walking or lying in bed that survives nearly unchanged in the final version. But really I'm writing when I do this. I'm doing the mental part of writing; my fingers just aren't moving as I do it. [2]
在精确定义的领域中，你可以在脑海中形成完整的想法。例如，人们可以在脑子里下棋。数学家也可以在脑子里做一定量的数学运算，尽管他们似乎只有在写下来之后才对超过一定长度的证明感到确信。但这似乎只适用于可以用形式语言表达的想法。[1]可以说，这些人所做的正是在脑海中将想法付诸文字。我可以在一定程度上在脑子里写文章。我有时会在散步或躺在床上时想到一个段落，它在最终版本中几乎原封不动。但实际上，当我这样做时，我就是在写作。我正在做写作的思维部分；只是手指没有在动。[2]
You can know a great deal about something without writing about it. Can you ever know so much that you wouldn't learn more from trying to explain what you know? I don't think so. I've written about at least two subjects I know well — Lisp hacking and startups — and in both cases I learned a lot from writing about them. In both cases there were things I didn't consciously realize till I had to explain them. And I don't think my experience was anomalous. A great deal of knowledge is unconscious, and experts have if anything a higher proportion of unconscious knowledge than beginners.
你可以对某件事了解很多，而不必把它写出来。但有没有可能你知道得太多，以至于再通过解释自己知道的东西也学不到更多？我不这么认为。我至少写过两个我很熟悉的主题——Lisp 编程和创业——在这两个主题上，我都从写作中学到了很多。在这两种情况下，都有一些东西直到我不得不解释它们时才意识到。我认为我的经历并非反常。大量知识是无意识的，而专家相比于初学者，其无意识知识的比例可能更高。
I'm not saying that writing is the best way to explore all ideas. If you have ideas about architecture, presumably the best way to explore them is to build actual buildings. What I'm saying is that however much you learn from exploring ideas in other ways, you'll still learn new things from writing about them.
我并不是说写作是探索所有想法的最佳方式。如果你对建筑有想法，大概探索它们的最佳方式是建造实际的建筑。我的意思是，无论你通过其他方式探索想法学到了多少，你仍然会通过写作学到新东西。
Putting ideas into words doesn't have to mean writing, of course. You can also do it the old way, by talking. But in my experience, writing is the stricter test. You have to commit to a single, optimal sequence of words. Less can go unsaid when you don't have tone of voice to carry meaning. And you can focus in a way that would seem excessive in conversation. I'll often spend 2 weeks on an essay and reread drafts 50 times. If you did that in conversation it would seem evidence of some kind of mental disorder. [3] If you're lazy, of course, writing and talking are equally useless. But if you want to push yourself to get things right, writing is the steeper hill.
当然，将想法付诸文字不一定意味着写作。你也可以采用古老的方式，通过说话来实现。但根据我的经验，写作是更严格的考验。你必须承诺一个单一的、最优的词语序列。当你没有语调来承载意义时，能省略的东西就更少。而且你可以以一种在对话中显得过分的方式集中注意力。我经常在一篇文章上花两周时间，重读草稿50次。如果你在对话中这样做，那就像是某种精神疾病的证据。[3]当然，如果你懒惰，写作和说话同样无用。但如果你想推动自己把事情做对，写作是更陡峭的山坡。
The reason I've spent so long establishing this rather obvious point is that it leads to another that many people will find shocking. If writing down your ideas always makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it. And someone who never writes has no fully formed ideas about anything nontrivial. It feels to them as if they do, especially if they're not in the habit of critically examining their own thinking. Ideas can feel complete. It's only when you try to put them into words that you discover they're not. So if you never subject your ideas to that test, you'll not only never have fully formed ideas, but also never realize it. Putting ideas into words is certainly no guarantee that they'll be right. Far from it. But though it's not a sufficient condition, it is a necessary one.
我花了这么长时间阐述这个相当明显的观点，是因为它会引出一个许多人都觉得震惊的观点。如果写下你的想法总是能让它们更精确、更完整，那么任何没有写过某个主题的人，对这个主题都不具备完全成形的想法。而从不写作的人，对任何非琐碎的事情都没有完全成形的想法。对他们来说，感觉上似乎有，尤其是如果他们没有批判性地审视自己思维的习惯。想法可能会感觉完整。只有当你试图将它们付诸文字时，你才发现它们并不完整。因此，如果你从不将你的想法置于这种考验下，你不仅永远不会有完全成形的想法，而且永远不会意识到这一点。将想法付诸文字当然不能保证它们正确。远非如此。但尽管它不是充分条件，却是必要条件。
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1] Machinery and circuits are formal languages.[
2] I thought of this sentence as I was walking down the street in Palo Alto.[
3] There are two senses of talking to someone: a strict sense in which the conversation is verbal, and a more general sense in which it can take any form, including writing. In the limit case (e.g. Seneca's letters), conversation in the latter sense becomes essay writing.It can be very useful to talk (in either sense) with other people as you're writing something. But a verbal conversation will never be more exacting than when you're talking about something you're writing.
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1] 机器和电路是形式语言。[
2] 当我在帕洛阿尔托的街上行走时，我想到了这句话。[
3] 与他人交谈有两种含义：严格意义上指口头对话，更宽泛的意义上则包括任何形式，甚至写作。在极端情况下（如塞内加的书信），后一种含义下的交谈就变成了散文写作。在写作时与他人交谈（无论是哪种含义）都非常有用。但口头对话永远不会比谈论你正在写的东西时更严苛。
Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Patrick Collison, and Robert Morris for reading drafts of this.
感谢Trevor Blackwell、Patrick Collison和Robert Morris阅读本文的初稿。