On Writing Well - William Zinsser

Chapter 1 The Transaction

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 myselfreading 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 to it? How did it change his life?

This is the personal transaction that's at the heart of good non-fiction writing. Out of it come two if 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 will achieve the greatest clarity and strength.

Chapter 2 Simplicity

The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that is already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what-these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to education and rank.

I would have preferred the presidential approach taken by Franklin D. Roosevelt when he tried to convert into English his own governments memos, such as this blackout order of 1942:

Such preparations shall be made as will completely obscure all Federal buildings and non-Federal buildings occupied by the Federal government during an air raid for any period of time from visibility by reason of internal or external illumination.

"Tell them," Roosevelt said, "that in buildings where they have to keep the work going to put something across dows.

Chapter 5 The Audience

“Who am I writing for?” It’s a fundamental question, and it has a fundamental answer: you are writing for yourself. Don’t try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience-every reader is a different person.

Chapter 6 Words

If all your sentences move at the same plodding gait, which even you recognize as deadly but don’t know how to cure, read them aloud. (I write entirely by ear and read everything aloud before meeting it go out into the world.) You’ll begin to hear where the trouble lies.

Chapter 12 Writing about people - The interview

Those three examples are typical of the kind of information that is locked inside people’s heads, which a good nonfiction writer must unlock. The best way to practice is to go out and interview people. The interview itself is one of the most popular nonfiction forms, so you should master it early.

How should you start? First, decide what person you want to interview. If you are a college student, don't interview roommate. With all due respect for what terrific roommates you've got, they probably don't have much to say that the rest of us want to hear. To learn the craft of nonfiction you must push yourself out into the real world-your town or your city or your county-and pretend that you’re writing for a real publication. If it helps, decide which publication you are hypothetically writing for. Choose as your subject someone whose job is so important, or so interesting, or so unusual that the average reader would want to read about that person.

Chapter 13 Writing about places- the travel article

The terrible work has nothing to do with some terrible flaw of character. On the contrary, it results from the virtue of enthusiasm. He enjoyed liis trip sc much that he wants to tell us all about it—and "all" is what we don't want to hear. What made his trip different from everybody else’s? What can he tell us that we don’t already know?

Travelese is also a style of soft words that under hard examination mean nothing, or that mean different things to different people: "charming," "romantic." To write that “the city has its own attractiveness" is no help. And who will define charm," except the owner of a charm school? Or "romantic"? These are subjective concepts in the eye of the beholder.

Chapter 15 Science and Technology

Imagine science writing as an upside-down pyramid. Start at the bottom with the one fact a reader must know before he can learn any more. The second sentence broadens what was stated first, making the pyramid wider, and the third sentence broadens the second, so that you can gradually move beyond fact into significance and speculation-how a new discovery alters what was known, what new avenues of research it might open, where the research might be applied. There’s no limit to how wide the pyramid can become, but your readers will understand that the broad implications only if they start with one narrow fact.

Chapter 16 Business writing - writing in your job

Still, plain talk will not be easily achieved in corporate America. Too much vanity is on the line. Managers at every level are prisoners of the notion that a simple style reflects a simple mind. Actually a simple style is the result of hard work and hard thinking; a muddled style reflects a muddled thinker or a person too arrogant, or too dumb, or too lazy to organize his thoughts.

Remember that what you write is often the only chance you’ll get to present yourself to someone whose business or money or good will you need. If what you write is ornate, or pompous, or fuzzy, that’s how you’ll be perceived. The reader has no other choice.