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On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction Paperback – April 5, 2016
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On Writing Well has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity and the warmth of its style. It is a book for everybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does in the age of e-mail and the Internet.
Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you fundamental priciples as well as the insights of a distinguished writer and teacher. With more than a million copies sold, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication dateApril 5, 2016
- Reading age15 - 18 years
- Dimensions0.76 x 5.31 x 8 inches
- ISBN-109780060891541
- ISBN-13978-0060891541
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“On Writing Well belongs on any shelf of serious reference works for writers.” — New York Times
“Not since The Elements of Style has there been a guide to writing as well presented and readable as this one. A love and respect for the language is evident on every page.” — Library Journal
About the Author
William Zinsser is a writer, editor and teacher. He began his career on the New York Herald Tribune and has since written regularly for leading magazines. During the 1970s he was master of Branford College at Yale. His 17 books, ranging from baseball to music to American travel, include the influential Writing to Learn and Writing About Your Life. He teaches at the New School in New York.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition
The Classic Guide to Writing NonfictionBy William ZinsserHarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright ��2006 William ZinsserAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0060891548
Chapter One
The Transaction
A school in Connecticut once held "a day devoted to the arts," and I was asked if I would come and talk about writing as a vocation. When I arrived I found that a second speaker had been invited -- Dr. Brock (as I'll call him), a surgeon who had recently begun to write and had sold some stories to magazines. He was going to talk about writing as an avocation. That made us a panel, and we sat down to face a crowd of students and teachers and parents, all eager to learn the secrets of our glamorous work.
Dr. Brock was dressed in a bright red jacket, looking vaguely bohemian, as authors are supposed to look, and the first question went to him. What was it like to be a writer?
He said it was tremendous fun. Coming home from an arduous day at the hospital, he would go straight to his yellow pad and write his tensions away. The words just flowed. It was easy. I then said that writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed.
Next Dr. Brock was asked if it was important to rewrite. Absolutely not, he said. "Let it all hang out," he told us, and whatever form the sentences take will reflect the writer at his most natural. I then said that rewriting is the essence of writing. I pointed out that professional writers rewrite their sentences over and over and then rewrite what they have rewritten.
"What do you do on days when it isn't going well?" Dr. Brock was asked. He said he just stopped writing and put the work aside for a day when it would go better. I then said that the professional writer must establish a daily schedule and stick to it. I said that writing is a craft, not an art, and that the man who runs away from his craft because he lacks inspiration is fooling himself. He is also going broke.
"What if you're feeling depressed or unhappy?" a student asked. "Won't that affect your writing?"
Probably it will, Dr. Brock replied. Go fishing. Take a walk. Probably it won't, I said. If your job is to write every day, you learn to do it like any other job.
A student asked if we found it useful to circulate in the literary world. Dr. Brock said he was greatly enjoying his new life as a man of letters, and he told several stories of being taken to lunch by his publisher and his agent at Manhattan restaurants where writers and editors gather. I said that professional writers are solitary drudges who seldom see other writers.
"Do you put symbolism in your writing?" a student asked me.
"Not if I can help it," I replied. I have an unbroken record of missing the deeper meaning in any story, play or movie, and as for dance and mime, I have never had any idea of what is being conveyed.
"I love symbols!" Dr. Brock exclaimed, and he described with gusto the joys of weaving them through his work.
So the morning went, and it was a revelation to all of us. At the end Dr. Brock told me he was enormously interested in my answers -- it had never occurred to him that writing could be hard. I told him I was just as interested in his answers -- it had never occurred to me that writing could be easy. Maybe I should take up surgery on the side.
As for the students, anyone might think we left them bewildered. But in fact we gave them a broader glimpse of the writing process than if only one of us had talked. For there isn't any "right" way to do such personal work. There are all kinds of writers and all kinds of methods, and any method that helps you to say what you want to say is the right method for you. Some people write by day, others by night. Some people need silence, others turn on the radio. Some write by hand, some by word processor, some by talking into a tape recorder. Some people write their first draft in one long burst and then revise; others can't write the second paragraph until they have fiddled endlessly with the first.
But all of them are vulnerable and all of them are tense. They are driven by a compulsion to put some part of themselves on paper, and yet they don't just write what comes naturally. They sit down to commit an act of literature, and the self who emerges on paper is far stiffer than the person who sat down to write. The problem is to find the real man or woman behind the tension.
Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is. I often find myself reading with interest about a topic I never thought would interest me -- some scientific quest, perhaps. What holds me is the enthusiasm of the writer for his field. How was he drawn into it? What emotional baggage did he bring along? How did it change his life? It's not necessary to want to spend a year alone at Walden Pond to become involved with a writer who did.
This is the personal transaction that's at the heart of good nonfiction writing. Out of it come two of the most important qualities that this book will go in search of humanity and warmth. Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author. It's a question of using the English language in a way that it will achieve the greatest clarity and strength.
Can such principles be taught? Maybe not. But most of them can be learned.
Continues...
Excerpted from On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Editionby William Zinsser Copyright ©2006 by William Zinsser. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : 0060891548
- Publisher : Harper Perennial; Anniversary,Reprint edition (April 5, 2016)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780060891541
- ISBN-13 : 978-0060891541
- Reading age : 15 - 18 years
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 0.76 x 5.31 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #3,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Rhetoric (Books)
- #7 in Writing Skill Reference (Books)
- #9 in Fiction Writing Reference (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author
William Zinsser, a writer, editor, and teacher, is a fourth-generation New Yorker, born in 1922. His 18 books, which range in subject from music to baseball to American travel, include several widely read books about writing.
On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, first published in 1976, has sold almost 1.5 million copies to three generations of writers, editors, journalists, teachers and students.
Writing to Learn which uses examples of good writing in science, medicine and technology to demonstrate that writing is a powerful component of learning in every subject.
Writing Places, a memoir recalling the enjoyment and gratitude the places where William Zinsser has done his writing and his teaching and the unusual people he encountered on that life journey.
Mr. Zinsser began his career in 1946 at the New York Herald Tribune, where he was a writer, editor, and critic. In 1959 he left to become a freelance writer and has since written regularly for leading magazines. From 1968 to 1972 he was a columnist for Life. During the 1970s he was at Yale, where, besides teaching nonfiction writing and humor writing, he was master of Branford College. In 1979 he returned to New York and was a senior editor at the Book-of-the-Month Club until 1987, when he went back to freelance writing. He teaches at the New School and at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is an adviser on writing to schools, colleges, and other organizations. He holds honorary degrees from Wesleyan University, Rollins College, and the University of Southern Indian and is a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library.
William Zinsser's other books include Mitchell & Ruff, a profile of jazz musicians Dwike Mitchell and Willie Ruff; American Places, a pilgrimage to 16 iconic American sites; Spring Training, about the spring training camp of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1988; and Easy to Remember: The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs; and he is the Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir. A jazz pianist and songwriter, he wrote a musical revue, What's the Point, which was performed off Broadway in 2003.
Mr. Zinsser lives in his home town with his wife, the educator and historian Caroline Zinsser. They have two children, Amy Zinsser, a business executive, and John Zinsser, a painter and teacher.
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Customers find the writing advice in the book good and simple. They describe the information as invaluable, informative, and useful. Readers also mention the book is humorous and charming. They say it's a welcome read, entertaining, and interesting.
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Customers find the writing advice in the book good. They say it includes simple, clutter-free sentences. Readers also say the book is highly readable and helpful for scientific writing. They mention it's an excellent reference for aspiring writers. Reader also mention the author writes in a personal, encouraging style.
"...1. Good writing must exhibit humanity and warmth. A writer's product is himself, not the subject that he is writing about.2...." Read more
"This book helped me improve my writing style found it be a very informative and useful book...." Read more
"...Simplicity is the highest virtue--"The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components."..." Read more
"...What I particularly enjoyed is the plethora of examples and excerpts through which the author presented the concepts...." Read more
Customers find the book filled with invaluable advice, rules of grammar, humor, and insights. They say it's an excellent guide to help you become a better writer. Readers also mention it'll teach you about the drafting process.
"...Trust your material.6. Make your lead so compelling that the reader can't put your book down.7...." Read more
"This book helped me improve my writing style found it be a very informative and useful book...." Read more
"...I got a lot out of it. He gives a lot of useful tips: think what the reader wants to know next after each sentence; the last sentence of each..." Read more
"...Great insight, though, and easy to understand and implement." Read more
Customers find the book entertaining, interesting, and helpful. They say it reads like a novel and is a classic reference book. Readers also mention it's rich with great advice and pointers.
"...what Zinsser calls the four articles of faith: Clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity...." Read more
"...Clarity, simplicity, brevity, and humanity are Zinsser's "four articles of faith."..." Read more
"...In any of these forms, it suggests writing with clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity...." Read more
"Reads like a novel." Read more
Customers find the book very humorous. They say the author has wit and charm. Readers also mention the book provides many funny stories.
"...In the end, this book suggests adding humor and surprise to writing, the question is how to be humorous in writing. The recipe is not given." Read more
"...He has both wit and charm. He supplies many funny stories. He makes fun of pompous academics and pedagogues. He is empathetic and warm...." Read more
"...And the humor teaches you as it entertains.This book is the real deal; for me, on a level with Strunk and White...." Read more
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Customers find the book well worth the buy, saying it's a good quality book for cheap. They also say it'll be an excellent and cost-effective purchase.
"...be the essence of the book so my take on it final thoughts excellent book worth the value but unless you know these points I'm making here you may..." Read more
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"...This is worth the read. My copy is never more than a few feet away from my writing desk.Paul Buckner, Author of:..." Read more
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Customers find the style of the book elegant, encouraging, and conversational. They say it looks and feels new, is plain, and easy to follow. Readers also mention the book motivates them with its wit, charm, and stories.
"...The chief strength of the book is Mr. Zinsser's voice--he is quietly elegant, and persuasive when he writes about, for instance, Unity..." Read more
"It's a humble and clear book" Read more
"...for gender neutrality, and then go back to using the pronoun "he" it looks lazy, like you're not even following your own rules of the book!..." Read more
"...He advocates the sparcity of writing. Remove all excess words. Clean, crisp, clear. Prune ruthlessly...." Read more
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On Writing Well gives me a high standard to emulate and debunks many myths perpetrated by people I consider more knowledgeable than myself. This book is a gift to anyone who takes writing seriously.
I also believe there is a spiritual battle waged in Christian writing. The evil one does not want God's glory to be revealed in human creativity. If he can persuade Christian writers through mediocrity and deception that publishing articles or books is the ultimate goal without a passion for truth, beauty, and redemption, our writing will be compromised. We will sacrifice our best-God's creativity--for a cheap counterfeit. As Zinsser states so well, we need role models who exhibit good writing that we can copy to help us develop our own style.
I also feel "normal" now knowing I am not "crazy" with my compulsion to rewrite things over and over as I fidget for the right construction. I take comfort in knowing at least Zinsser does the same thing.
There are too many good points On Writing Well to summarize in a few short paragraphs, so I want to break them down into the four parts of the book as Zinsser presented them.
Part I Principles
All these principles would apply equally to fiction and nonfiction.
1. Good writing must exhibit humanity and warmth. A writer's product is himself, not the subject that he is writing about.
2. Write clearly and eliminate all clutter.
3. Be yourself on paper as you are in person.
4. Write the way that is most natural to you.
5. Write to please yourself--I like to think I am writing to please God. To paraphrase from the Bible, whatever I do, do it as if I am doing it unto the Lord, and give Him the glory. That means the reader deserves the best I have to offer.
6. Writing is art through imitation.
7. Avoid journalese and cheap words--the world has enough of them already (I know because I caption them every day). Instead, surprise the reader with the rhythm and cadence of verbs and nouns that express vitality and beauty in unexpected ways.
8. Respect the English language and write correctly--it will show you care about the reader and respect his intelligence.
Part II Methods
All these principles would apply equally to fiction and nonfiction.
2. Unity ensures orderliness in terms of presentation, pronoun, tense, and mood.
3. Enthusiasm will keep the reader engaged.
4. Leave the reader with one new thought or idea to consider after he finishes your story.
5. Be flexible--let your writing take you where it wants to go. Trust your material.
6. Make your lead so compelling that the reader can't put your book down.
7. Always have more material to draw from than you think you will need.
8. Look for the story in your writing--people love stories.
9. Know when to end (I have read my share of great books that I never finished because I became bored in the waning chapters).
10. Use active and precise verbs and adjectives. Avoid overuse of adverbs.
My translation is, if it sounds like writing, it's a poor substitute. My favorite books are those where I get lost in the story--I have been transported to another world or another time and forget I am reading until something or somebody disturbs me.
11. Omit the "little qualifiers."
In my book Children of Dreams, I did a word search for qualifiers I tend to overuse like "very" and removed them. I also did a search for exclamation points--most of those came out also. The change in overall appearance was stunning.
12. Avoid contractions like "I'd, he'd, and we'd." I don't write these words captioning because I don't like them (they don't exist in my captioning dictionary), so I am glad to know I don't ever need to write them.
13. Don't overstate. I have been turned off by writers who overstated a fact. My translation is, don't insult the reader's intelligence.
14. Don't compare your writing to others. Your only competition is with yourself.
15. If something can't be fixed, take it out. In captioning parlance, when in doubt, take it out. Better not to caption it than to caption it wrong.
16. Keep paragraphs short.
17. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.
Part III Forms (Noted for my own edification)
1. Dramatic nonfiction should have no inferring or fabricating, but a condensing of time and events is acceptable to tell the story, raising the craft of writing nonfiction to art.
2. Seize control of style and substance when writing about people and places; take unusual care with details.
3. A memoir covers a short span of time and is not autobiographical. Use sound, smell, touch and rich remembrance to allow the reader to enjoy the journey alongside you.
4. When writing science, write as an ordinary person, sequentially, and never forget the human element is what will make the story come alive.
5. Strip from business writing all the extra "lingo" and write with what Zinsser calls the four articles of faith: Clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.
6. Sports writing is rich in opportunity for nonfiction writers--a source of material for social change and social history. Strip away the sports jargon and write with active verbs and colorful adjectives. (This chapter spoke to me personally as it takes months of training to become a competent sports captioner. Because I hope to incorporate sports into my creative writing, I'm glad to know that good sports writing eliminates the junkie lingo that I caption every day).
7. Criticism is a serious intellectual act undertaken by those trained in the area of inquiry. The first qualification should be to love the type of art being critiqued.
8. Humor is the secret ingredient to nonfiction writing that adds zest and joy to truth and life.
Part IV Attitudes
The following would apply to fiction except for 6 through 10. All would apply to nonfiction.
1. Avoid cheap writing, clichés, and breeziness. Develop a style that the reader with recognize as "your voice."
2. Write with sincerity. Your best credential is yourself.
3. Focus on process, not outcome. Zinsser calls it, "The Tyranny of the Final Product."
4. Quest and intention should guide us in our writing. Quest is the search for meaning and intention is what we wish to accomplish--the soul of our writing.
5. Writing is about making decisions, and ultimately, where you wish to take the reader on your journey.
6. Consider the resonance of the words you choose and its emotional impact on the reader.
7. As a nonfiction writer, "You must get on the plane." (I think about the adoption of my two daughters from Nepal and Vietnam. My book Children of Dreams is about their adoptions. If I never got on the plane, I wouldn't have them. Neither would the reader have my book.
8. When writing memoir, choose one point of view to preserve unity; i.e., writing from the viewpoint of the child versus the adult looking back. They are different kinds of writing.
9. Remember, when writing memoir, it's your story. Memoirs should have a redemptive quality--readers won't connect with whining.
10. Organize your memoir through a series of reductions, focusing on the small stories tucked away in memory. The reader will connect because the stories will resonate with universal truth.
11. Strive to write the best you can. Give all of yourself. The reader deserves the best you have to offer.
"Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard."
Zinsser's section on the principles of writing sounds like Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. Simplicity is the highest virtue--"The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components." On the other hand, "clutter is the disease of American writing."
Clarity, simplicity, brevity, and humanity are Zinsser's "four articles of faith." He says that any piece of non-fiction writing can be enjoyable if it is written with "warmth and humanity." And he proves his point. On Writing Well is full of stories about real people. I enjoy reading it as much as any novel. I read half of it in the bookstore before I bought it, and I have read it several times since then.
Zinsser doesn't just talk about principles, grammar, and style. His book has chapters on nearly every genre of non-fiction writing: interviews, travel articles, memoir, business writing, science and technology, sports writing, reviewing, and humor. There's something for everyone.
I do realize how badly I write. For that reason, I read every book on writing that I can find. Few have been as helpful as On Writing Well. None have been as enjoyable to read.
Zinsser is qualified to tell us how to write. He has written books on subjects from baseball to jazz, including this book that has sold over one million copies and is in its seventh printing. Mr. Zinsser has also taught writing at Yale and Columbia University.
We get a glimpse of Zinsser's political views in places. Though they are different than mine, it doesn't change the way I feel about the book. Unlike some books on writing, this one is not trying to persuade the reader politically or morally. Zinsser's goal is to make better writers. What if we hear his likes and dislikes? After all, he's a real person writing with warmth and humanity.
If you want a book that will help you become a better non-fiction writer, this is the one.
Top reviews from other countries
I bought it for practical reasons (wanting to write better emails at work) and had a great time while reading it.
My advice to potential readers is to read it alongside a non-fiction book you like.
It talks about what writing should look like whether you are a sportswriter or travel writer. It keeps its focus on nonfiction writing but you get many lessons on fiction writing as well.
MUST READ if you are a writer or editor or just hoping to be a writer some day.
William Zinsser tells with clear examples that clutter and clichés in writing are present everywhere, we read them so often that we’ve become numb, narrowing our sense of what a good piece of writing looks like. Then he elegantly shows what it looks like. Humour and optimism are “lubricants in writing”, it also requires “a good musical ear, a sense of rhythm and a feeling for words”, he says.
My favourite chapter of this book is A Writer’s Decision in which William Zinsser deconstructs one of his travel piece on Timbuktu, which had appeared in Condé Nast Traveller magazine. Leading up to that section, with my fresh pair of reading eyes and heightened reading senses, I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish. That chapter summed it up for me, the experiences of Timbuktu lingered for several days in my mind, so did the intertwined writing lessons. I imagined that I was reading the Timbuktu article in the magazine and thought, “how could someone, after reading it, not want to visit Timbuktu and relive for themselves what William Zinsser did”.
The book is neatly organised, starting with the fundamental principles of writing, followed by the methods to use during the execution. At this point you’re hooked which is when he takes you with him to dive deep and long into the various forms of writing — such as an interview, a travel, a business, or a science article — each consisting of some brilliant examples to take home an important lesson. In the last section, he covers attitudes which one can develop to become a complete writer.
Never ever will I be fooled and mislead again by a poor piece of writing even if it appears in the most prestigious publication. On the other hand, I’ve realised that a fresh piece can appear even in the least reputed newspaper.