On Writing Well. William Zinsser.

On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction. Second Edition.
William Zinsser.
New York: Harper & Row Publishers. 1980.

Why read it? A helpful book on all aspects of writing nonfiction, including any type of writing that does not include short stories or novels, from articles to business memos to executive summaries. Zinsser is especially critical of “clutter” in American writing. He discusses audience, the size of paragraphs and usage. Everyone can learn something about how to write better from reading this book. I guarantee it.

Sample Ideas from the Book: “Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next.” “Clutter is the disease of American writing, a society strangling on unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.” “Our national tendency is to inflate and thereby sound important.” “Every long word that could be a short word, every adverb which carries the same meaning that is already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what [is an example of “clutter”]. “The reader is a person with an attention span of about twenty seconds, assailed on every side by forces competing for his time by newspapers and magazines, by television and radio and stereo, by his wife and children and pets, by his house and yard and all the gadgets that he has bought to keep them spruce and by that most potent of competitors, sleep.”

“Consider all the prepositions that are routinely draped onto verbs that don’t need any help: ‘head up’; ‘free up’; ‘face up to’; we no longer ‘head’ committees, we ‘head them up’; we don’t ‘face’ problems any more; we ‘face up to them’ when we can ‘free up’ a few minutes. Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there. Inflated prepositions and conjunctions: ‘with the possible exception of’ (‘except’);’for the reasons that’ (‘because’); ‘he totally lacked the ability to’ (‘he couldn’t’); ‘until such time as’ (‘until’); ‘for the purpose of’ (‘for).”

“All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem: where to obtain facts, how to organize the material; a problem of approach or attitude; tone or style. Unity is the anchor of good writing. What one point do I want to make? Examples of style: involved, detached, judgmental.” “The most important sentence in any article is the first one; if it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead….” “You should give as much thought to choosing your last sentence as you did to your first. What often works best in the ending is a quotation.”

Quote: “Short paragraphs put air around what you write and make it look inviting, whereas one long chunk of type can discourage the reader from even starting to read.”

Quote: “Dictated sentences tend to be pompous, sloppy and redundant.”