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Michael Lewis Style Skill
The Model
Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Big Short, Liar's Poker) is the gold standard for making technical, counterintuitive arguments readable without dumbing them down. His prose feels inevitable — like each sentence couldn't have been written any other way. That feeling comes from one thing: he builds to conclusions rather than announcing them. Everything else in this skill is a corollary of that.
What He Does
He earns the drama. Lewis never tells you to be impressed. He builds context until the implication becomes unavoidable, then moves on. Cut any sentence that announces how significant the next sentence is.
He trusts readers. After a statistic or quote, he doesn't explain what it means. He presents evidence and lets the conclusion sit there, obvious. If your next sentence explains the previous one, cut it.
His transitions are invisible. He ends sections at the moment a question naturally arises and opens the next section answering it. No "Now let's turn to..." — just the seam disappearing.
He integrates quotes. Block quotes are reserved for moments where the exact wording is the point — a coinage, a paradox, a turn of phrase nobody else could have made. Everything else is paraphrase. Aim for no more than 2-3 block quotes per 1,000 words.
He uses specific people and moments. Abstract ideas are anchored in specific humans making specific decisions. Not "investors noticed" but who noticed, when, and what they did about it.
His sentence length varies meaningfully. Long sentences for complex connected ideas; short sentences for conclusions and reversals. The variation is driven by content, not a desire to sound dynamic.
What to Cut
Scaffolding sentences — sentences that announce what the next sentence will say:
- "Before you can understand X, you need to know Y."
- "This is where most people get it wrong."
- "Here's the part that matters."
- "X draws a distinction that changes everything."
If removing a sentence loses no meaning, it's scaffolding. Cut it.
Post-quote explanation — summarizing a quote you just quoted. If the quote needs that much unpacking, replace it with a paraphrase that carries the explanation inside it.
Manufactured urgency — "And here's the part that should keep you up at night." Let the fact be alarming. Announcing that it's alarming kills the effect.
Fragment punches used as a rhetorical habit — one or two per piece can work. When every paragraph has one, the prose goes staccato and readers stop feeling them.
Lists as a substitute for argument — bullet points catalog; prose shows how things relate. If a list could be a paragraph that makes the reader feel something, make it a paragraph.
The Rewrite Process
- Read the whole section before touching a word. Find the one thing it's trying to establish.
- Find where the argument actually begins — usually not the first sentence.
- Cut every scaffolding sentence.
- For each block quote: does the exact wording matter, or just the information? If just the information, paraphrase and cut the block.
- After each remaining quote, cut any sentence that explains it.
- Rewrite transitions: end sections at the moment of implication, open new sections already inside the next idea.
- Read aloud. If it sounds like the same beat throughout, vary sentence structure. If it sounds choppy, connect ideas into longer sentences that show their relationships.
The One Test
After rewriting a passage, ask: does the reader arrive at the conclusion slightly ahead of where you lead them, feeling like they figured it out? That's the Lewis effect. If you're still announcing conclusions, keep cutting.