The ‘Son of Quora’ Has 1.6 Billion Content Views — Here’s His Best Writing Advice
Storytelling insights from Sean Kernan
Ping Sean Kernan to request if you can hang out and ask him writing questions, and he’ll say no.
He doesn’t offer free consulting, he values his writing time too much.
I love Sean’s articles. I’m enchanted by the stories he shares. Every time I read an article by Sean, I found myself asking: “How does he do this? Where does he find these stories? How does he structure them so I can’t stop reading?”
As I searched out answers to these questions, I found some good news. Sean shares his writing process online, and his aren’t your typical writing tips. Sean’s approach is unique and actionable.
So, I decided to dive deep. I spent several weeks going through everything I could find from Sean about his writing process. Then I wrote up my findings to help me better understand and to apply what I learned.
Applying Sean’s methods has significantly improved my writing. I share what I learned from Sean below — broken down into a series of writing methods and mindset shifts.
First, a quick intro to Sean.
Who is the Son of Quora?
Sean Kernan is a former financial analyst from Tampa, Florida who began answering questions on Quora in 2016. His answers proved so popular that he quickly notched up millions of views, and he now has moved into billions of views. Not even writers like John Grisham or J.K. Rowling could claim that many views of their content.
In 2019 he quit his job to write full-time.
As a result of his writing success, Kernan has earned the nickname the “Son of Quora”.
Here are Sean’s top writing tips:
You Can’t Just Paint This Picture of Your Glossy Life
A few years ago, Sean went on a second date with a woman he’d met on Tinder. He met up with her and a bunch of her friends.
“I figured it would be a light, low-pressure situation,” Sean says. But when he showed up, another woman he’d been chatting with on Tinder was also sitting at the table. She recognized Sean, and they spent the night ignoring each other.
The next morning, Sean’s date from that evening called. She and her friend had discussed how they’d both been messaging Sean. They’d shown each other the messages he’d sent to them. They realized he followed the same script with each of them. The same pick-up lines, the same jokes, and even the same image of himself.
“In that moment, I felt pretty f*cking sleazy,” Sean said. He never saw either date again.
That could have been the end of the story, but Sean chose to write about the experience.
“When you write, you can’t just paint this glossy picture of a perfect life,” Sean says. “You’ve got to share some of those moments. It sheds light on your humanity, and makes people relate to you.”
Be Interesting… the ‘Professor’ You’re Writing for is a Person
A college student once asked Sean: “How can I get better at writing essays?”
Sean’s answer: think about the skyscraper stacks of papers your professor has to read. Grading papers is tedious work. As Sean puts it, a professor is “a really, really bored person with a lot of dull essays to grade.”
Your job as a writer is to make your readers’ lives less tedious. Give them a smile. Make them feel. Grab them by the eyeballs, and glue them to your words.
Above all, as Sean says, “don’t be boring”.
Restless and Lost is a Great Place to Write From
While Sean advises “don’t be boring”, he also believes that being bored is a useful state for writers.
“My best writing is when I’m bored,” Sean says. “That’s when I’m dangerous.” He adds:
“When I’m squirming and trying to find something to write. When I’m restless or bored, that is when I find my best stuff.”
Sean believes it works this way because being bored makes him pull ideas out of the void. For him, that’s a “good place to be” and a great place to write from.
Apply the “So What?” Test
Sean says there’s one question you should use to improve your writing: “So what?”
I’ve tried this technique, and it’s like drilling for precious minerals. The more you ask the question, the deeper you dig, and all kinds of good stuff comes up.
It’s an easy way to give your writing a jolt of additional power.
Get a Tiny Bit Better Every Day
At the 1972 Olympics, Mark Spitz won the 200-meter butterfly swimming event in 2 min 0.7 sec.
Forty years later, in 2012, Chad le Clos won the same event with a time of 1 min 52.96 seconds. Over seven seconds faster.
Telling a similar story, Sean Kernan summarizes:
“Never underestimate the value of small improvements. They stack to produce huge gains.”
With over 4,000 pieces of content written over the past 5 years, it’s little wonder Sean is such a compelling storyteller. He gets a tiny bit better every day.
Your Curiosity Uncovers Stories No-one Else is Telling
When I first started reading Sean Kernan’s stories, I wondered “how did he find that?” It seemed like he had a special knack for uncovering incredible stories.
The truth is, he’s constantly consuming stories. He writes:
“Everywhere I go, when I’m at the airport, a restaurant, having a conversation, reading a book, listening to a podcast, I’m constantly thinking, ‘Is this something I could use?’”
Even at home on his computer, Sean follows his curiosity. “I love the strange places the YouTube algorithm takes me to,” he says.
Whenever he hears about a story he’d like to hear more about, he writes it down in the Sticky Notes app on his phone. That’s how simple it can be to gather stories and build a writing career
Stats Are Your ‘Performance Review’
Writing online means you get instant feedback. You can see how many readers have seen your article, average read time, and the level of engagement through comments and social shares.
“Every article you write is a performance review,” Sean says. Your stats give you immediate feedback on how much readers like (or dislike) your writing.
“Don’t blame the system. Don’t blame clickbait competition,” Sean adds. All you can do is learn from your stats, and continue to improve your writing game.
He even advocates deleting your writing that gets the least engagement, to push yourself to write in an engaging way.
Ask for Help Finding the Right Word
I know some writers who refuse to use any writing tools, such as a dictionary or thesaurus. They believe writing should come naturally from their soul, or it’s not really writing.
I’m not that kind of writer. I’ve always been willing to crack open a thesaurus or run a Google search for more info when I feel stumped for what to say.
Sean Kernan shows even higher devotion to finding precisely the word he needs. He’ll open his own Reddit thread simply to ask for the word he needs. Sean explains: “Sometimes if I’m stumped, I go to ask Reddit and poll them, ‘what’s a one-word way to say ___?’”
Giving Something to the Reader Can Mean Giving them a Puzzle to Connect the Dots
Online writing tutor David Perell charges thousands of dollars to join his writing course. One of his rules of writing is to surprise his readers. He says: “Once you’re predictable, you’re boring.”
Sean Kernan takes this one step further. He advocates allowing your readers to “connect the dots” and finish your thoughts. Overexplaining, he says, is “one of the most common mistakes intermediate writers make.”
To take your writing to the next level, you should “imply something rather than state it outright.” Sean adds that the “big goal” is to “avoid being basic.”
In other words, respect your readers’ intelligence. Let them join the dots. How can you write in this way? It’s about drip-feeding details.
Drip Feed Details to Build Tension
One of Sean Kernan’s favorite writing tips is the ‘gun on the wall’ advice from Russian short-story writer Anton Chekhov:
“Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”
Every detail you include in your writing should be there for a reason. You organize these details to create questions in your readers’ minds. This builds tension. A gun on the wall at the beginning of a story raises the question of what’s going to happen when that gun is fired. That tension pulls your reader through the story until the moment the gun is used.
Sean’s strategy for doing this is to “slow down time and drip feed details.” Focusing on small details allows tension to grow.
Your Life is Full of Stories — No Matter How Ordinary You Feel
“I never thought my life has been all that interesting,” Sean says. Before he started writing, he saw himself as a regular guy with a regular life. Not all that much has happened to him. But each time he thinks he’s run out of stories, he realizes “Oh yeah, I forgot about that one.”
The key to releasing all these stories, for Sean, has been getting over his fear to put himself out there. He doesn’t play it safe. Nor does he get caught up in worries that he’ll share a vulnerable story, and no one pays attention to it.
His Best Writing Advice? Just Do It
“One of the best pieces of writing advice I received is to ‘actually write,’” Sean says.
Sean’s view is that either you’re typing words into a word processor, or you’re not. You become a writer in the act of writing. Thinking about writing isn’t the same thing. “Daydreaming about writing doesn’t get anything done,” he says.
In summary, Sean Kernan’s writing philosophy is the same as the famous Nike slogan: “Just Do It”.