6.0 KiB
Prose & Essays Tone Guide
Use this guide for blog posts, essays, newsletters, long-form writing, and any polished creative prose.
Opening
Always open with a concrete scene, story, or observation. Never open with an abstract thesis or a definition.
John does this:
- "Like the barbecue Texas is so well known for, it feels like I'm being slow-roasted whenever I step outside."
- "When I was a teenager, I attended take your kid to work day with a friend of my parents."
- "When I imagined life in my 20s, this is what I always imagined hanging out with friends would look like."
- "Imagine this. You're in a parking lot searching for a space."
- "A group of aerospace engineering professors are ushered onto a plane."
John never does this:
- "In today's world of electric vehicles, the question of range anxiety remains paramount."
- "The relationship between technology and nature has long been debated."
The opening should make the reader curious. It should feel like the beginning of a story someone tells at a bar, not the introduction of an academic paper.
Building the Argument
John uses a "zoom out" pattern. He starts zoomed in on a specific moment or detail, then gradually pulls back to reveal the larger insight.
Example from the Navy Yard essay: Starts with a personal memory of visiting DC as a teenager → zooms out to the transformation of Navy Yard → zooms further to the Height of Buildings Act → arrives at the question of what makes cities desirable.
Transition devices John uses:
- Rhetorical questions: "Does it have to be this way?"
- Short declarative pivots: "Not quite." / "There is a simple solution." / "Consider this alternative."
- Direct address: "Let me explain."
- Callbacks to the opening story: returning to the concrete example after exploring the abstract
Transition devices John avoids:
- "Furthermore", "Moreover", "Additionally"
- "Having established X, we can now turn to Y"
- "This brings us to our next point"
Paragraph Length
John varies paragraph length. Most paragraphs are 2-5 sentences. He occasionally drops a single-sentence paragraph for emphasis. He never writes wall-of-text paragraphs exceeding 8 sentences.
Writing as Thinking
John writes to complete thoughts, not to present conclusions he already had. The essay is where the idea becomes fully formed — it arrives at a real, strong conclusion, but the journey to that conclusion follows his genuine curiosity rather than a pre-planned argument. The reader should feel like they're thinking alongside him, not being walked through a proof.
This means:
- The conclusion is earned by following the thread, not announced at the top
- The argument can shift slightly as it builds — that's not weakness, that's honest thinking
- The conclusion is strong and committed, not hedged into mush — but it's offered as where the thinking landed, not as the final word
Tone Calibration
John's prose tone sits at about 60% conversational, 40% deliberate. He's more careful than a text message but less formal than a newspaper editorial. He writes like someone who revised their dinner party story a few times to make it land better.
He uses contractions freely: "it's", "don't", "can't", "I'm", "they're". Avoiding contractions would sound stiff and unlike him.
The kinetic quality. John's best prose moves. Each sentence creates a small pull toward the next. When it's working, the writing feels light and fast — tongue-in-cheek, a little playful, not labored. If the prose feels like it's trudging from one point to the next, it's not his voice. Aim for momentum.
Humor in Prose
Humor appears as texture, never as the point. It's woven into observations and parentheticals.
Examples of his humor style in essays:
- "Running out of juice in Texas may mean Wile E Coyote is the closest help."
- "Sitting in the parking garage wasn't as much fun as sitting at the concert."
- "It's like the parking lot designers were only told they had to get the cars into the parking lot and were never told they would need to get them out of it."
- "It takes eight hours just to leave Texas watching ranches and wind turbines go by."
Closing
John lands gently. His conclusions tend to:
- Ask a question: "Where else might we choose to do the hard work now so we're better positioned for the future?"
- Offer a quiet invitation: "Now go cook some excellent food and make some friends doing it because it's too good to keep to yourself."
- Circle back to the personal: "It's hoping we can find the cause of the toxic algae bloom in Lady Bird Lake, find a non-destructive solution, and feeling safe taking Bear to her favorite place again."
He never:
- Restates the thesis in summary form
- Uses "In conclusion" or "To sum up"
- Ends with a grand declaration or call to arms
Audience
John writes for an adequately educated generalist — someone with common sense, a curious mind, and no specialized background required. The reference point is a show like Derek Thompson's Plain English: smart, accessible, treats the reader as a thinking adult.
The posture is peer-to-peer. John is a fellow traveler sharing what he figured out, not an expert teaching a course. "I worked this out and wrote it down. Maybe it's the next building block for someone else turning over the same ideas."
Subject Matter
John gravitates toward essays that take a mundane observation and extract an unexpected insight. His favorite subjects: cars and driving, food and cooking, travel, technology's relationship with humanity, video games as learning tools, urban design, nature and environment. When writing on his behalf, lean into these interests and this pattern of mundane-to-meaningful.
Quoting and References
John cites sources conversationally. He names books, authors, and people naturally rather than using footnotes or formal citations.
Example: "While reading Entangled Life, a book all about fungi, I recently learned about the 'wood wide web'."
Not: "According to Sheldrake (2020), fungal networks form a 'wood wide web' beneath forest floors."