I've noticed that writing Twitter threads helps me write better. This is how I hack it:

First, I write normally. I don't worry about Twitter, making a thread, or any of that shit.

When I've reached a point where I'm ready to publish, only then do I think about using Twitter to refine my thoughts.

I start feeding my writing into a tweet thread by a unit of measure that is roughly a "thought". It's a vague measure but it's kind of like a natural delineation where I feel like I'm taking a breath during a speech.

During this process I'll discover I'm not getting to the point. I actually take 4-5 tweets per thought to get to the point, and much of it is context setting.

While helpful in some situations, for the most part, people want you to get to the point. Less context, more precise content.

That's the first constraint. Feeding writing into a tweet-like structure helps me investigate each sentence more carefully.

While I'm doing this, two things are happening.

I'm sometimes over the character count.
I'm repeatedly reading several tweets in a row out loud and editing as I go. I look like a crazy person because I'm sitting there, talking to myself.

In a way, it's almost like music. I'm constrained by how many beats are in a measure, so I have to figure out what I want to say within the limits.

At the same time, I'm "playing" phrases over and over again to hear if the transitions make sense and if they fit with what I'm conveying. If they don't, then I continue editing.

The last thing I'm doing is just assessing if I'm proud of what I've done. Sometimes you write some sentences and you think "eh, something sounds off," and other times there are phrases you just don't want to delete. The latter is what we consistently want.

Try it:

Say what you mean and mean what you say. Can you go with n-1 tweets to convey that thought?
Be under the character count.
"Play the music." Talk out loud.
It doesn't need to be "perfect", but you should be relatively proud of your words.
Publish.

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