Book Review: On Writing Well
William Zinsser, reissued 2016
Key words
Writing, nonfiction, writer’s craft, creative writing, narrative writing, interdisciplinary writing, writing teacher, practical writing advice, professional writing
First published in 1976, On Writing Well is a book that would have saved me a lot of time if I’d encountered it before my 30s.
In the introduction to the 2016 edition that I own, Zinsser acknowledges his fond debt to White & Strunk’s The Elements of Style, and places his contribution to the craft oeuvre in context:
“What [The Elements of Style] didn’t address was how to apply those principles to the various forms that nonfiction writing and journalism can take. That’s… what I would teach in my book: how to write about people and places, science and technology, history and medicine, business and education sports and the arts and everything else under the sun that’s waiting to be written about.”
Words are only tools
Pragmatic and process-agnostic, Zinsser focuses on what matters — the end product.
As someone who gets frustrated with the dreamy imprecations of creative writing instructors who tell you to own your truth, or write from the gut, or manifest whatever, it’s refreshing to have a guide whose aims are superficial in the best way.
No requirement to save the world, or address your inner child, just compose a coherent, cohesive text.
“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.”
The big idea
On Writing Well contains 25 chapters divided into four parts: Principles, Methods, Forms and Attitudes.
Already, clarity as welcoming as a brush-bristle doormat: wipe your feet then come, make yourself at home.
Part III, Forms, breaks down specific nonfiction genres: interviews, travel writing, memoir, criticism, professional writing. That Zinsser has conventions to guide him, here, should not be taken to mean the advice is extraneous or patronizing. Even those of us who write travel articles, interviews and suchlike are (half) unconscious of the formal requirements we’ve internalized. It is good to see them spelled out.
Part I, Principles, offers succinct advice on the scribe’s bugbears: audience, word choice, usage, simplicity and style (among others).
“Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style and how it obstructs what they are trying to say.”
If you are not charmed by the gently acerbic matter-of-factness of that statement you might not enjoy this book, but you almost certainly need it.
The briefest part (II), Methods includes Bits & Pieces — more of which below.
In the fourth and final part, Attitudes, Zinsser brings it home with chapters on voice, ‘Enjoyment, Fear & Confidence’ and decisions.
My take
Chapter 10, ‘Bits & Pieces’ is in itself worth the price of admission.
From trenchant advice on description (“Most adjectives are also unnecessary”) to peerless advice on qualifiers (and life): “Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little bit depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed” — Zinsser dispenses wisdom weighty enough to sink the careers of thousand writing teachers.
If all learners read and heeded his words, we would be gainfully unemployed.
Their take
“An informal guide,” says the subtitle. “Informal” it is—smooth, colloquial, seemingly effortless. “To writing nonfiction,” it goes on to say. Well—that depends on what you mean by “nonfiction.” William Zinsser, a veteran of The Herald Tribune and Life and of years of freelancing, is primarily concerned with popular journalism as it is practiced (less and less) in magazines and (more and more) in daily papers. Not the nonfiction of studygroup reports or academic tomes, and not straight news reporting, either. The book grew out of a writing course he now teaches at Yale, so the tone is that of a veteran addressing beginners. But the message can be absorbed with profit by any writer, no matter what his experience or his field.
— Sherwin D. Smith, The New York Times, Feb 29, 1076
Must read for
Anyone who wants to be sure their writing says what they mean, and says it well.
Read also
Elements of Style — William Strunk, Jr. & E. B. White
“Politics and the English Language” — George Orwell
Writing to Learn — William Zinsser