Hegepedia Style Guide

A guide for writing good Hegepedia entries by keeping things simple.

TL;DR

• Following this guide will make Hegepedia easy to both read and write.
• Use simple words and simple sentences.
• Write fractally.
• LLMs are not allowed.
• Have fun!

Making Hegepedia Easy to Both Read and Write

The purpose of this style guide is two-fold.

First, Hegepedia should be as easy and fun as possible to read. We obviously want people to spend a lot of time reading it, so the less friction they experience, the better it is. This style guide is designed to help you write entries that are exactly that: easy and pleasurable to read.

On top of that, just having a common style helps reading in and of itself. Because as soon as you’ve read one page, you will be familiar with the language and the style, and your brain will be prepared for what’s coming next.

Second, having a set of clear guidelines to follow not only makes articles easier to read, but it also makes them easier to write. Once you’ve learned the standard terms and the standard way of formatting entries, you can focus on what matters: the content.

Easy to read, easy to write, that’s the goal.

Use Simple Words and Simple Sentences

When writing Hegepedia entries, use simple words and simple sentences.

The sad truth is that most people today have appallingly poor reading comprehension. And even if they read well, they have little time to do it. This means your writing must be easy to read.

So don’t use difficult words when simpler ones would suffice. Cut out unnecessary verbiage. And don’t write complicated sentences that go on and on and on.

Lean toward active verb forms — “X did Y”, not “Y was done by X”. So for example, write “Hege spilled the water”, not “The water was spilled by Hege”. Don’t go overboard on this though — it’ not a hard rule! If the object or result of action is the main point, a passive form might be better. But most of the time, the active verb form is easier to understand.

Keeping things simple doesn’t mean that you have to write in childish language or that you can never use complicated words. You can assume that your reader is intelligent, but also assume that you’re not impressing anyone with your fancy vocabulary and convoluted sentences.

It’s 2026. Keep it simple.

Make Your Writing Sing

Write in a conversational style that feels natural and easy to follow.

This is obviously easier said than done, but here are a few pointers that can help.

As already mentioned, lean towards shorter sentences. But there’s an important caveat here: while shorter sentences are typically good, don’t make every sentence short. Because if you do, your writing will feel monotone and dull.

As in everything, balance is key. If you look at the sentences in this article, most of them are reasonably short. Some are very short. But there are also a few that are quite long in comparison — like this one for example — which helps the writing feel more dynamic.

This also applies to the paragraph level.

Make most paragraphs on the shorter end. Some can even be just a single sentence, like the one above. Especially when you want to make a point or change the subject. But don’t make every paragraph a single sentence, or your text will feel like somebody just rattling off a list of bullet point. Again, balance is key — short paragraphs must be balanced by longer ones, and vice versa.

Here is one more tip to cap this section off: read your text out loud and notice how it sounds. When you speak what you’ve written, does it come out naturally? Is it pleasant to read? Does it feel like it’s rolling off your tounge with little effort? That’s how it should feel.

If it’s easy for you to speak, it will be easy for others to read.

Write Fractally

Start each section with a one sentence paragraph that summarizes the section.

Especially when reading online, people skim. They quickly scroll down the text, glance at the headlines, maybe read the first sentence of each section, perhaps another sentence here and there. Then if they find something interesting, they might jump in and read a little bit more.

This is the reality, so this is what we need to design the writing for. How? By writing fractally.

If you skim through this entry, you will find that the title of the entry plus the short intro at the top will give you the big context for what the entry is about.

Then if you go on and read just the individual headlines throughout the entry, you will get the big picture idea of the different parts of the style guide. Then if you read the first and the last paragraphs of each section, you will get an even better sense of what to do. Then finally, if you read the middle paragraphs of each section, you will get the full explanation of the guidelines.

That’s fractal writing, and it’s a very good way of designing texts to be accessible even to chronic scanners with minimal attention spans.

End each section with a short take-home message.

Use Standard Terms and Formats

Here is a list of standard terms and formats to use when dealing with dates, times, and so on.

• When referring to the project or the brand, always use uppercase letters: HEGE.
• When referring to Hege the character, use Hege.
• The token is either called $HEGE or the $HEGE token.
• The story is called the Hege Story, with capital “S”.
• The Hege Story is divided into Levels and Chapters.
• Hegepedia entries are called just that: entries.
• The gallery in Hegepedia is called the gallery.
• Use AP-style title case for level 1 and level 2 headings (see https://titlecaseconverter.com/).
• Never use more than three levels of headings in Hegepedia entries (title of the entry is level 1, main headings is level 2, and subheadings is level 3).
• Write dates as 2026-10-19 or 19 October 2026. Note that there is no “th” after the digits.
• Always capitalize days of the week and months: Sunday 19 January.
• Write times as 24 hour UTC, and include “UTC”: 08:15 UTC, 20:00 UTC.

No LLMs Allowed

Hegepedia is 100% human written.

This is important. If people know and trust that every word on Hegepedia comes from an actual human, they will respect the content more, and feel a much deeper connection. This human connection is the keystone of our brand strategy, and it’s absolutely crucial for creating a true cult brand. Any use of LLMs will screw that up.

Also, LLM texts will make us sound like everybody else, and if we sound like everybody else, we have no edge. Our edge is that we’re different. We do things our way. We’re an island of meaningful craftmanship in the sea of mindless slop. Okay that sounded horribly pompous, but you get the point.

Any use of LLMs is strictly off the table.

And Finally Most Importantly: Have Fun!

Hegepedia should be fun to read and fun to write.

People are here to be entertained. And also of course to be dazzled and intrigued by the epicness of our outrageously good storytelling. Haha.

No but seriously, playful hubris aside, if you have fun while writing and if you’re genuinely excited about the story you’re telling, that will reflect in your writing. That in turn will attract other creative and likeminded people, which is exactly what we need to get this thing to reach critical velocity.

So if you remember just one single message from this guide, remember this:

Write what excites you. No more, no less.