10xblogger

10x Blogger

Rules for writing with clarity, conviction, and an incarnated voice.

Goal: Say one true thing well. Everything else is noise.

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Universal Rules

1. Write with Conviction

State your claims directly. Hedging words dilute your authority.

• Bad: It seems like this approach might potentially offer some advantages.
• Good: This approach offers two advantages.

Kill: "it seems", "one could argue", "in some ways", "might potentially", "sort of".

2. Write to One Person

Pick a specific reader. Write as if only they are reading. This produces warmth, directness, and a sense of occasion. A reader who feels addressed stays. One who feels lectured leaves.

3. Define Before You Deploy

When using a loaded term — art, craft, intuition, velocity — define it first in your own words.

• Bad: Programming requires intuition.
• Good: By intuition I mean decisions that can't be reduced to a rule. Larry Wall designed Perl to feel like natural language — not because it was theoretically sound, but because it felt right.

4. Anchor the Abstract

Every claim needs a concrete anchor: an example, a name, a number, a scene.

• Bad: Decentralized systems can be resilient.
• Good: Decentralized systems are resilient. The internet was designed to survive a nuclear strike. It has no center. Your blog post travels a path that is unknowable and irrelevant, yet it arrives.

5. Vary Sentence Rhythm Deliberately

Long sentences carry ideas forward. Short sentences land them.

The relentless pursuit of quarterly metrics forces teams into tactical reactivity, optimizing for local maxima while ignoring the strategic landscape that determines survival. This is a trap.

Short = conclusion, punchline, turn. Long = argument, evidence, nuance.

6. Start Strong, End with Resonance

• First sentence: your sharpest claim or most arresting image

• Last sentence: a question, an image, a thought that extends beyond the post

• Never end with "In conclusion..." or "I hope this was useful"

• Bad: In summary, we've discussed why observability matters for modern systems.

• Good: The tools change, but the principle is timeless: build systems a stranger can debug. What are you building today that a future you could understand?

7. Cut 20%, Then 10% More

After writing, cut. Then cut again.

• Remove every word that doesn't change meaning if deleted
• Kill adverbs: very, really, truly, quite, extremely, basically, actually
• Kill throat-clearing: "In this post, I will...", "Today we'll explore..."

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The Anglo-Saxon Cut

Inspired by Hemingway and Strunk & White.

Omit needless words.

It is absolutely essential that you make an effort to write more clearly. → Write clearly.

Use active voice.

A decision was made to refactor the legacy service. → The team decided to refactor it.

Let verbs do the work. Replace weak verb + adverb with a single strong verb.

walked quickly → strode. spoke loudly → boomed.

Show, don't tell (Iceberg Principle). Omit what the reader can infer. Don't write "the codebase is complex." Describe the tangled dependencies, the conflicting protocols, the six-hour onboarding session. Trust readers to feel the complexity. The 90% below the waterline is what gives the 10% above its weight.

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L'Esprit de Clarté

Issu de la tradition éditoriale française.

Voltaire : « Le secret d'ennuyer est de tout dire. » Ne pas épuiser votre sujet. Trois arguments forts valent mieux que dix faibles. Donnez de l'espace au lecteur pour penser.

Éviter la nominalisation. Transformez les substantifs en verbes.

La réalisation d'une revue de l'implémentation a été nécessaire. → L'équipe a réalisé qu'il fallait revoir l'implémentation.

Voix active. Nommez l'agent.

Des erreurs ont été commises. → J'ai fait une erreur. La clarté, c'est la responsabilité.

Une idée par phrase. En français, la tentation est la subordonnée dans la relative dans la proposition. Résistez. Coupez.

Mots courts d'abord. utiliser avant employer. mais avant cependant. parce que avant en raison du fait que.

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Pre-Publish Checklist

• First sentence: would a stranger want to continue?
• Central claim visible within the first two paragraphs?
• Key terms defined before use?
• Sentence rhythm varied (short and long alternating)?
• 20% cut done? Adverbs gone? Throat-clearing removed?
• Active voice? Direct? Sounds like a human?
• Last sentence resonates — doesn't summarize?
• Read aloud: any stumbles? (stumble = rewrite; rush = add rhythm)
• Does this respect the reader's intelligence and their time?