June 2025

An essay has to tell people something they don't already know.

But there are three different reasons people might not know something, and they yield three very different kinds of essays.

An essay has to tell people something they don't already know. But there are three reasons they might not, yielding three different kinds of essay.

An essay has to tell people something they don't already know — and the three reasons they might not know it yield three different kinds of essay.

One reason people won't know something is if it's not important to know.

That doesn't mean it will make a bad essay.

For example, you might write a good essay about a particular model of car.

Readers would learn something from it.

It would add to their picture of the world.

For a handful of readers it might even spur some kind of epiphany.

But unless this is a very unusual car it's not critical for everyone to know about it. [1]

If something isn't important to know, there's no answer to the question of why people don't know it.

Not knowing random facts is the default.

But if you're going to write about things that are important to know, you have to ask why your readers don't already know them.

Is it because they're inexperienced, or because they're obtuse?

So the three reasons readers might not already know what you tell them are (a) that it's not important, (b) that they're obtuse, or (c) that they're inexperienced.

One reason is that the thing isn't important to know — which doesn't make for a bad essay. A good essay about a model of car teaches you something, just nothing critical.

But if you write about things that are important, you have to ask why your readers don't. Is it because they're inexperienced, or obtuse?

So the three reasons are (a) that it's not important, (b) that they're obtuse, or (c) that they're inexperienced.

One reason is that the thing isn't important to know — which can still make a good essay. If it is important, the only reasons readers don't know it are that they're obtuse or inexperienced.

The reason I did this breakdown was to get at the following fact, which might have seemed controversial if I'd led with it, but should be obvious now.

If you're writing for smart people about important things, you're writing for the young.

Or more precisely, that's where you'll have the most effect.

Whatever you say should also be at least somewhat novel to you, however old you are.

It's not an essay otherwise, because an essay is something you write to figure something out.

But whatever you figure out will presumably be more of a surprise to younger readers than it is to you.

If you're writing for smart people about important things, you're writing for the young. Or more precisely, that's where you'll have the most effect.

What you say should be novel to you too — an essay is something you write to figure something out — but it surprises the young most.

That breakdown gets at a fact that would have seemed controversial up front: if you're writing for smart people about important things, you're writing for the young — because that's where there's the most room to surprise.

There's a continuum of surprise.

At one extreme, something you read can change your whole way of thinking. The Selfish Gene did this to me.

It was like suddenly seeing the other interpretation of an ambiguous image: you can treat genes rather than organisms as the protagonists, and evolution becomes easier to understand when you do.

At the other extreme, writing merely puts into words something readers were already thinking — or thought they were.

The impact of an essay is how much it changes readers' thinking multiplied by the importance of the topic.

But it's hard to do well at both.

It's hard to have big new ideas about important topics.

So in practice there's a tradeoff: you can change readers' thinking a lot about moderately important things, or change it a little about very important ones.

But with younger readers the tradeoff shifts.

There's more room to change their thinking, so there's a bigger payoff for writing about important things.

The tradeoff isn't a conscious one, at least not for me.

It's more like a kind of gravitational field that writers work in.

But every essayist works in it, whether they realize it or not.

There's a continuum of surprise. At one extreme, a book changes your whole way of thinking, as The Selfish Gene did mine. At the other, it merely says what readers already thought.

An essay's impact is how much it changes thinking times the topic's importance, and it's hard at both. So there's a tradeoff: change thinking a lot about modest topics, or a little about important ones. But younger readers leave more room.

The tradeoff isn't conscious — more a kind of gravitational field that writers work in, whether they realize it or not.

Impact is how much you change a reader's thinking times the importance of the topic, and it's hard to do well at both. With younger readers there's more room to change, so the tradeoff shifts — a gravitational field every essayist works in.

This seems obvious once you state it, but it took me a long time to understand.

I knew I wanted to write for smart people about important topics.

I noticed empirically that I seemed to be writing for the young.

But it took me years to understand that the latter was an automatic consequence of the former.

In fact I only really figured it out as I was writing this essay.

Obvious once stated, but it took me years. I noticed I seemed to write for the young; only writing this essay did I see why.

This seems obvious once stated, but it took me years to see that writing for the young was an automatic consequence of writing for smart people about important things — I only figured it out writing this essay.

Now that I know it, should I change anything?

I don't think so.

In fact seeing the shape of the field that writers work in has reminded me that I'm not optimizing for returns in it.

I'm not trying to surprise readers of any particular age; I'm trying to surprise myself.

The way I usually decide what to write about is by following curiosity.

I notice something new and dig into it.

It would probably be a mistake to change that.

But seeing the shape of the essay field has set me thinking.

What would surprise young readers?

Which important things do people tend to learn late?

Interesting question.

I should think about that.

Should I change anything now? I don't think so. I'm not trying to surprise readers of any particular age; I'm trying to surprise myself.

I write by following curiosity. But the field's shape has me wondering what would surprise young readers — which important things people learn too late.

Knowing the shape of the field, should I change anything? No — I'm not optimizing for returns, I'm trying to surprise myself by following curiosity. But it has set me wondering what young readers don't yet know.

Note

[1] It's hard to write a really good essay about an unimportant topic, though, because a really good essayist will inevitably draw the topic into deeper waters. E. B. White could write an essay about how to boil potatoes that ended up being full of timeless wisdom. In which case, of course, it wouldn't really be about how to boil potatoes; that would just have been the starting point.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston and Michael Nielsen for reading drafts of this.

A good essayist draws even an unimportant topic into deeper waters: E. B. White could write about boiling potatoes and end up full of wisdom.

A note on E. B. White, who could write about boiling potatoes and end up full of timeless wisdom — and thanks to the readers of drafts.