On Writing Well, 25th Anniversary: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

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Overview

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 sole, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.

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Overview

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 sole, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valuable resource for writers and would-be writers.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780060006648
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 1/28/2001
  • Edition description: 25TH ANNIVERSARY
  • Edition number: 25
  • Pages: 320
  • Product dimensions: 5.42 (w) x 8.02 (h) x 0.78 (d)

Read an Excerpt

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 establisha 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.

On Writing Well copyright © by William K. Zinsser. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All Rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Customer Reviews

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  • Anonymous

    Posted November 17, 2004

    This book is a must have for writers

    As a college student, this book is priceless. I couldn't believe the improvement in my writing skills after reading this book (and I have the grades to prove it!). If you want to learn to write clearly and effectively, buy this book!

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted July 21, 2003

    The Very Best Book Ever Written re Writing

    I have bought about 10 copies of this book over the past few years. I have given them all away. Please note that I am not normally a proselytizer except when it comes to Mr. Zinsser¿s most extraordinary book. Being of an age where the fantasies of my youth have faded, I find that I still can fantasize about being able to write as well as Zinsser can and has. I once was a computer nerd though I have since become a different kind of nerd; one who no longer writes computer programs but, instead, writes about writing computer programs. The difference between the two is that a computer program is judged in a binary manner, that is, it either works or it doesn¿t work. There is always a definite, concrete judgment regarding a program ¿ sort of a thumbs-up vs. thumbs-down evaluation criterion. The judgmental basis for a written product is never as simple. Even a book that wins the Pulitzer Prize, which should serve as a definitive `thumbs-up,¿ will have detractors whose criticism is interwoven with abstractions that preclude a yes/no type of verdict. Nowadays, when I find myself submerged in a miasma of subjective reactions to my writing (please note that my own subjectivity is part of the cloud), or when I just can¿t get started on a new project I pull out my copy of `On Writing Well,¿ open it to any random page and start to read. It doesn¿t matter where I land; whatever I find there captivates me and soon recharges my approach to the writing task at hand. This approach always works and when I put the book down, I wonder why I picked it up in the first place. Zinsser tells us that, although writing is never easy (at least, not for him), it can be made easier through the application of a few concepts, including organization, simplicity of writing style, and editing. He stresses the benefits of a recursive editing process throughout the book. Early in the book (pages 10 and 11 in my current copy) he includes a two page reproduction of the book¿s galley with his hand written edits included. The thing that grabs you is the 30 - 40 edits shown on these two pages is taken from the fourth or fifth draft of the book! My advice is that buying `On Writing Well¿ is as risk-free an expenditure as one can make.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
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