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On Writing Well

Author: William Zinsser

Chapter 2: Simplicity

I remember hearing a lot of the points made in this chapter in my undergrad English classes. His point is that our writing is so often cluttered by filler words, unnecessary words or jargon meant to make us feel smarter. His point is simple. Cut it out.

Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say? Surprisingly often they don’t know. Then they must look at what they have written and ask: Have I said it? Is it clear to someone encountering the subject for the first time? If it’s not, some fuzz has worked its way into the machinery. The clear writer is someone clearheaded enough to see this stuff for what it is: fuzz.

Chapter 3: Clutter

“Experiencing” is one of the worst clutters. Even your dentist will ask if you are expreriencing any pain. If he had his own kid in the chair he would say “Does it hurt?” He would in short, be himself…

…By using a more pompous phrase in his professional role he not only sounds more important; he blunts the painful edge of truth

It’s the language of the flight attendant demonstrating the oxygen mask that will drop down if the plane should run out of air. “In the unlikely possibility that the aircraft should experience such an eventuality” she begins — a phrase so oxygen depriving in itself that we are prepared for any disaster.

You can develop the same eye. Look for clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Reexamine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? Is anything pompous or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging on to something useless just because you think it’s beautiful? Simplify, simplify.

Chapter 4: Style

“But” you may say, “if I eliminate everything you think is clutter and if I strip every sentence to its barest bones, will there be anything left of me?”

He makes the point that we need to strip our writing down before we can build it back up. He says that most of us write really terribly. We will write 8 pages, and he will tell us to strip it down to 4. We will struggle through it but make it happen, then comes the hard work of getting it to 3 pages.

But you will be impatient to find a “style” –to embellish the plain words so that readers will recognize you as someone special. You will reach for gaudy similes and tinselled adjectives, as if “style” were something you could buy at the style store and draper onto your words in bright decorator colors…There is no style store; style is organic to the person doing the writing, as much a part of him as his hair, or, if he is bald, his lack of it.

Writers need to be themselves. Readers want to hear from someone genuine.

Writing in first person is the most natural, and the author often encourages people to use it, but often people are hesitant. They feel self-conscious. Who am I to say what I think or feel. He replies: Who are you not to say what you think?

Nevertheless, getting writers to use “I” is seldom easy. They think they must earn the right to reveal their emotions or their thoughts. Or that it’s egotistical. Or that it’s undignified–a fear that afflicts the academic world. Hence the professorial use of “one” or of the impersonal “it is”. I don’t want to meet “one”–he’s a boring guy. I want a professor with a passion for his subject to tell me why it fascinates him.

But I’ve also noticed a new reason for avoiding “I”: Americans are unwilling to go out on a limb. A generation ago our leaders told us where they stood and what they believed. Today they perform strenuous verbal feats to escape that fate. Watch them wriggle through TV interviews without committing themselves. I remember President Ford assuring a group of visiting businessmen that his fiscal policies would work. He said: “We see nothing but increasingly brighter clouds every month,” I took this to mean that the clouds were still fairly dark. Ford’s sentence was just vague enough to say nothing and still sedate his constituents.

Later administrations brought no relief. Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, assessing a Polish crisis in 1984, said: “There’s continuing ground for serious concern and the situation remains serious. The longer it remains serious, the more ground there is for serious concern.”

…”But my all-time champ is Elliot Richardson, who held four major cabinet positions in the 1970s. It’s hard to know where to begin picking from his trove of equivical statements, but consider this one: “And yet, on balance, affirmative action has, I think, been a qualified success.” A 13-word sentence with five hedging words. I give it first price as the most wishy-washy sentence in modern public discourse.

Leaders who bob and weave like aging boxers don’t inspire confidence–or deserve it. The same thing is true of writers. Sell yourself, and your subject will exert its own appeal. Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.

Chapter 8: Unity

Unity is the anchor of good writing. So, first, get your unities straight. Unity not only keeps the reader from straggling off in all directions; it satisfies your readers’ subconscious need for order and reassures them that all is well at the helm

Unity is needed in different areas:

Ask yourself in what capacity you will address the reader.

Chapter 14: Writing about yourself: The Memoir

He makes a strong point not to write “what the teacher wants” or “what the editor wants”. He urges us to write our own experiences.

Writing about one’s life is naturally related to how long one has lived. When students say they have to write what the teacher wants, what they often mean is that they don’t have anything to say–so meager is their after-school existence, bounded largely by television and the mall, two artificial versions of reality. Still at any age, the physical act of writing is a powerful search mechanism. I’m often amazed, dipping into my past, to find some forgotten incident clicking into place just when I need it.

So give yourself permission to write about yourself. However there is a thin line between ego and egotism. Writing is ego, but egotism is just prattling on about yourself. He again advises to make sure that your writing is doing useful work, if not, cut it.

A memoir isn’t a summary, it is a window into a life.

Chapter 16: Business Writing: Writing in your job

Just because people work for an institution, they don’t have to write line one…Information can be imparted clearly and without pomposity. You only have to remember that readers identify with people, not with abstractions like “profitability” or with Latinate nouns like “utilization” and “implementation” or with inert constructions in which nobody can be visualized doing something: “pre-feasibility studies are in the paperwork stage”

Chapter 19: Humor

Therefore I suggest several principles for the writer of humor. Master the craft of writing good “straight” English; humorists from Mark Twain to Russell Baker are, first of all, superb writers. Don’t search for the outlandish and scorn what seems too ordinary; you will touch more chords by finding what’s funny in what you know to be true. Finally, don’t strain for laughs, humor is built on surprise, and you can surprise the reader only so often.

Chapter 20: The Sound Of Your Voice

If you are writing on different topics, sports vs. Jazz for example, don’t change the sound of your voice. Your voice is your commodity. Develop a voice that readers will recognize whenever they read it, no matter what subject.

Cliché’s are the enemy of taste