On Writing Well - William Zinsser
Review & Rating: 9/10
I picked up this book because I wanted to write well. I’ve improved since reading the book. But I dare say I write well….yet.
I also read the book because I thought I wanted to be writer. I wasn’t sure and it was a nascent idea. An idea I had been nurturing in the shadows. It was after reading this book that I felt I had to be a professional writer. Maybe I knew it before and this book put me over the edge.
It’s through this book that I realized I wanted to write about people and places. I learned it was okay that I despised writing about news and whatever was trendy because it wasn't who I was.
When I read the chapter on writing about places, it struck me as an epiphany. I had forgotten travel writing was a category until it was spelled out for me in a chapter.
I also learned how to write investment reports. The kind that fit my style, of course. I realized that writing about companies and the people who led them was no different from a critic who writes about a movie or a restaurant. We are both judging the creation of others with the information we have and overlaying our own opinion on them.
The book felt personal for me and I came away wanting to be a better writer. I also came away realizing how awful I was right now. Both are motivating.
I think this book will inspire anyone who has an inkling to be a writer. I also think it’s a good book to quash faux dreams. The kind that think they want to be a writer because it’s sexy. Writing is a lonely, painful slog with no fame and money. If that doesn’t deter you, it’s worth a look.
I will end off with Allen Ginsberg, the poet, on becoming a poet:
“It wasn’t quite a choice—it was a realization. I was twenty-eight and I had a job as a market researcher. One day I told my psychiatrist that what I really wanted to do was to quit my job and just write poetry. And the psychiatrist said, ‘Why not?’ And I said, ‘What would the American Psychoanalytical Association say?’ And he said, ’There’s no party line.’ So I did.”
Book Notes:
For most, writing is a craft. Not art. Bourdain and Marco Pierre White also said chefs were cooks and they were craftsmen, not artists. The public doesn’t believe this or know this. Their views are best ignored.
“..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.”
Writing every day is a job you learn to do.
“…professional writers are solitary drudges who seldom see other writers.”
Writing is personal. There is no right or wrong way. Everyone has their way. They are all vulnerable and tense.
A writer is selling who he is. It’s his enthusiasm for what he writes about that keeps the reader involved. That means the writer should focus on writing about things he is genuinely interested in.
Avoid adverbs and passive verbs.
Good writing is simple but not any simpler.
‘It may rain’ is good. ‘I am presently anticipating experiencing considerable precipitation’ is god awful.
Find a short word for every long word.
Education and rank often have an inverse correlation to good writing. People need to ’sound’ smart so they prefer to have awful writing.
Write what is on your mind in a plain and orderly way. Simplify, simplify.
“Clear thinking becomes clear writing.”
First ask yourself “What am I trying to say?” Then ask yourself “Have I said it?”
Good writing isn’t natural. Talent needs to be cultivated with practice. People who think good writing is something you are born with and does not need any refining are idiots.
“Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time.”
Paul Theroux rewrote the first page of his book 50x. Zinsser rewrote this book 5x and it still required more tightening. Better you accept it’s supposed to take a long time because that’s the truth. If it doesn’t, it’s a miracle or you might’ve fucked up.
Take out redundancies (i.e. a personal friend => a friend). Fight the urge to be verbose. Most descriptions don’t matter. They’re clutter.
Not “are you experiencing any pain?”. Instead, “Does it hurt?”.
‘Depressed socioeconomic area’ = slum. Say what it is. As soon as you write for the political correctness and fear of how people will be offended, you’ve lost as a writer. Don’t let the the herd dictate what needs to be said. Writing is about truth and that goes against what society wants.
“Clutter is political correctness gone amok.”
Clutter is the enemy. Be direct. Say what happened.
Avoid: numerous, assistance, facilitate, initial, implement, sufficient, paradigm, parameter, potentialize, etc. Find the simple cousins.
Expect to cut 50% from your first draft. You won’t have lost much.
Writing is an act of ego. Accept that.
Write in first person. Avoid “one”.
Get personal. Stand for something.
Of course writing is hard. It takes work to express yourself. It takes practice to be less self-conscious.
“A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.” Yep.
Writing style is organic. Hone what makes you unique. Be yourself. Be yourself when you write.
“…we have become a society fearful of revealing who we are.”
Take out hedging words. That’s spineless. That’s what politicians do.
It’s always an audience of one.
“You are writing for yourself.”
There is no target audience. You can’t force people to do, like or agree to something. Your writing will attract whoever wants to read it.
Your audience will tell you what your style is with their own interpretations. Don’t focus your style. Focus on writing like yourself.
Write like how you talk. It’s a conversation.
Write to please yourself. When you are having fun, the reader will sense that in the writing.
Try quoting without using quotation marks. It’s possible.
Don’t rely on cliches (i.e. ‘only to be met,' ‘waging a lonely war,’ ’New York’s finest’)
Good writing has rhythm. It’s a dance.
Learn through imitation. Read writers you want to write like. Dissect their technique. Learn the rules so you can break them. But learn them.
“The race in writing is not to the swift but to the original."
Read White’s Element’s of Style once a year.
Use words that have stood the test of time. Don’t use trendy words or jargon. They have a short shelf life.
Every writer has an opinion on words. Select the write words for you, the clear and simple ones you would use in conversation.
Avoid technical English (i.e. give somebody my input and get his feedback), go for good English (i.e. offer my ideas and hear what he thinks of them).
You can’t cover everything. Focus on leaving the reader with one new thought. Think small.
Pick a pronoun, tense, style (impersonal reporter? Formal? Personal?), mood, attitude (involved? Ironic? Judgmental?) and what you want to say for each piece. Every writing should have a point.
Reduce before you start to write. Tolstoy didn’t tackle everything about war and peace. He focused.
The goal: “….every successful piece of nonfiction should leave the reader with one provocative thought that he or she didn’t have before.”
Don’t summarize your endings. It’s not a high school essay. Be abrupt. Seek out surprise for the reader. Focus on ending where it feels right. “The perfect ending should take your readers slightly by surprise and yet seem exactly right.”
The rule: “When you’re ready to stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the point you want to make, look for the nearest exit.”
The first sentence should hook the reader. Does it inspire curiosity for them to continue? The lead is the most important. Then it’s the ending. Ask yourself: does it work?
There is no science. No formula to tell you whether a lead is good. You have to learn to listen to yourself.
Active verbs only. People do things. Bad = He was seen by Joe. Good = Joe saw him. Verbs are your most important tools. They will make or break a sentence.
Use precise verbs. You start a business. You don’t set up a business.
No concept nouns either. Sentences are People Doing Things. Concept noun = The current campus hostility is…, The common reaction is….
Again, no adverbs. Stephen King recommends the same.
Be sparing with adjectives. The default is to avoid them. Use the noun to convey the description.
Avoid qualifiers (i.e. quite, very, too, rather, pretty). Don’t be timid!
Humour should be understated. Don’t use exclamation points.
No semicolons.
Short sentences preferred.
Dashes are great to explain a detail or rationalizing thought.
Start a sentence with mood changers like but. You’re allowed to start sentences with but. Ignore everything you learned in high school English. However is great too as the second or third word into a sentence. Others include yet, instead, thus, therefore, meanwhile, now, nevertheless, still.
Use contractions except for ‘I’d.’ Say I would.
Use ’that’ over ‘which’.
If a segment is problematic, cut the entire thing out.
Paragraphs should be short —2-3 sentences. Visual structure is important. Spaces make the writing inviting.
Don’t over explain.
Avoid plurals. They are less specific. Get specific. Don’t be a wandering generality in your writing. But they are effective at eliminating sexism.
Treat your writing like a fine Swiss watch. No extra parts. smooth.
Learn to love the rewriting. Learn to love the delete key that prunes.
Trust your material and write what interests you. “There’s no subject you don’t have permission to write about….No area of life is stupid to someone who takes it seriously.”
“No subject is too specialized or too quirky if you make an honest connection with it when you write about it.”
Writing is a contest with yourself. Focus on mastering the craft instead of some race. Go at your own pace. Ignore what others are doing. It’s like powerlifting.
Even when you aren’t writing, the writer is always working. Stay alert to the world around you.
Literature includes both fiction and nonfiction. Don’t be a snob who thinks it’s only fiction.
“…every writer must follow the path that feels most comfortable…. Motivation is at the heart of writing.”
Writing about places is hard.
“…it’s in this area that most writers—professional and amateur—produce not only their worst work but work that is just plain terrible.”
Notes on writing about places
Don’t tell all. Tell what was different. What don’t we already know?
Ask if it will fascinate the reader. Does it fascinate you? Be honest.
If phrases come to you naturally, be suspicious of them. Choose each word with care to avoid every travel writing cliche
Don’t write the obvious. Of course a beach has rocks scattered on the shore and seagulls in the air. Everyone knows that.
“Your main task as a travel writer is to find the central idea of the place you’re dealing with.” - read this again and again.
“…whatever place you write about, go there often enough to isolate the qualities that make it distinctive….this will be some combination of the place and the people who inhabit it.”
Good writing shows an idea to the reader that will change their perspective
Travel isn’t about broadening knowledge of landmarks. “It should generate a whole constellation of ideas about how men and women work and play, raise their children, worship their gods, live and die.”
Walden. Read that. It’s a phenomenal travel book.
Find out what each place is trying to be. Not what you want it to be or thought it would be.
Observe, observe, observe.
Write what you know. Everything about you gives unique knowledge others don’t.
“Nobody but a Chinese-American woman could have made me feel what it’s like to be a Chinese girl plunked down in an American kindergarten and expected to be an American girl.”
When writing a critique, help the readers see what you saw. I think business analysis is similar to a film review of restaurant critique. So, apply the same rules to business and people analysis as professionals critics do about the arts.
Show through what people have said and done why you think they are unusual or gaudy. Don’t just say your opinion. Show what makes you have such an opinion.
Humour is how you write about serious topics. That’s because a serious topic that lacks humour is a sermon and no-one wants to read those.
Devices for humour: satire, parody, irony, lampoon, nonsense.
Comedians are the truth tellers of society.
Humour is based on fundamental truths. Look at the four basic things all people do: sleeping, eating, family and making money
“They aren’t writing about life that’s essentially lubricous; they are writing about life that’s essentially serious…”
Humour is built on surprise. Find what’s funny in what you know to be true.
Truth and humour are intertwined. I once heard life is either a comedy or tragedy. Learn to look at life as a comedy. You’ll see humour everywhere.
Simple writing lasts. Use words that are short and strong. Use simple words. Words under 5 syllables. Try to aim for less than 3 syllable words.
Seek freshness in what you write. Choose words that have precision, surprise and strength.
Avoid long words that are vague. They are double useless.
Active verbs + plain nouns are your best tools.
In writing, less is more. Learn what to omit.
Avoid sounding condescending (i.e. you see, obviously). Nobody wants to be talked down to.
Learn to listen to your self. Take notice of moments when you think “oh that’s fascinating” before it gets murdered by your internal thought police. The thought police is the rationalizing part of your mind that stops you from exploring things you really should be.
Allen Ginsberg, the poet, on becoming a poet:
“It wasn’t quite a choice—it was a realization. I was twenty-eight and I had a job as a market researcher. One day I told my psychiatrist that what I really wanted to do was to quit my job and just write poetry. And the psychiatrist said, ‘Why not?’ And I said, ‘What would the American Psychoanalytical Association say?’ And he said, ’There’s no party line.’ So I did.”
The only way to make what you write interesting to others is by following your genuine curiosity. Like trying to court a mate, the more you try to force the other to like you the further you will push them away. That’s the same with writing. Don’t write things you think other people will like. Write something you’ll like and be proud of.
The point of writing is to explore.
As Robert Greene said, to be a good writer you need to live an interesting life. That’s where all your material comes from.
“Living is the trick. Writers who write interestingly tend to be men and women who keep themselves interested. That’s almost the whole point of becoming a writer. I’ve used writing to give myself an interesting life and a continuing education.”
No one is qualified for anything.
“Your best credential is yourself.”
The value to what you write comes from applying your life to it. Write about people and things you enjoy and respect.
“…if you bring to the assignment your general intelligence and your humanity, you can write about any subject. That’s your ticket to an interesting life.”
Writers are generalists. I felt goosebumps when I read that.
“If the expert thinks you’re dumb, that’s his problem.”
I’ll put it down again for my own emphasis:
“If the expert thinks you’re dumb, that’s his problem.”
To write well, create a space where you can focus on the process. Where you can be kept away from external pressures. Focus on the process.
“If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself, and the sales are likely to follow.”
Bring whatever you are writing down to human scale. Don’t try to cover an entire country, city or town. Go straight down to what you would see on the street in front of you.
Writing every day helps you find what you should writing about. It doesn’t come t you on demand. It takes time to find it and that means doing the work. That work is writing.
Tell your story in the form of a quest or pilgrimage. What is the story about. What are you looking searching for?
Writing is linear and sequential. It needs constant tension. Logic is the glue. Every step must feel inevitable.
You must keep the reader engaged. Each sentence should have one thought. Split up sentences.
The first sentence of the paragraph is born from the last sentence of the previous paragraph. The chain must continue.
Don’t forget that you are the guide. Anticipate what your reader wants to know next. What would you like to know next?
“No writing decision is too small to be worth a large expenditure of time.”
Good writing is all about discipline. Discipline that borders on masochism. God it makes me love writing even more. Prune, prune, prune. Ask yourself: what is the piece really about?
That doesn’t mean writing everything you know. You will only use a fraction of what you know because everything you know will reinforce the core information you used.
“Readers should always feel that you know more about your subject that you’ve put in writing.”
Remember to use humour in your writing to keep yourself entertained. If you are entertained, you’ll write better and that’ll keep the reader entertained. The jokes are for you. Have fun.
When finding an ending, let the story tell you where to stop. Listen to your story.
Zinsser wasn’t someone who dreamed of being a writer. Life brought him there.
“…a writer is someone who asks us to travel with him…”
“If you would like to write better than everybody else, you have to want to write better than everybody else. You must take an obsessive pride in the smallest details of your craft.”
“…to defend what you’ve written is a sign that you are alive.”
“What you write is yours and nobody else’s. Take your talent as fas as you can and guard it with your life. Writing well means believing in your writing and believing in yourself, taking risks, daring to be different, pushing yourself to excel. You will write only as well as you make yourself write.”
Writing is adventure and vice versa.
“Getting on the plane has taken me to unusual stories all over the world and all over America, and it sill does….As a nonfiction writer you must get on the plane. If a subject interests you, go after it, even if it’s in the next county or the next state or the next country. It’s not going to come looking for you. Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.”