A leading contender among the definitive works on writing, On Writing Well has sold over 1 million copies. Primarily a guide for non-fiction writers, it focuses on brevity, simplicity and clarity. Written by a Yale professor who was famous among his students for returning their papers littered with brackets that denoted any “writing that wasn’t doing useful work.”
Zinsser begins by telling us that “rewriting is the essence of writing,” which means to “simplify, prune and strive for order,” but it is by no means a stuffy rule book on the order of Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Minimize qualifiers, but also ignore the rule about never starting a sentence with but.
Zinsser remains a relevant guide for the modern digirati. As you compete for audience on Facebook or Twitter, for instance, you should not yield to what you think your audience wants to read about. Instead, write “primarily to please yourself, and if you go about it with confidence you will also entertain the readers.”
Primarily a guide for journalists, On Writing Well covers the basics of the interview, including the need to research everything about an interviewee before sitting down, because “you will be resented if you inquire about facts you could of learned in advance.” It also covers the all-important art of inspiration, which should begin with reading authors who are exemplary in your chosen style and proceed to material-gathering:
Look for your material everywhere, not just by reading the obvious sources and interviewing the obvious people. Look at signs and at billboards and at all the junk written along the American roadside. Read the labels on our packages and the instructions on our toys, the claims on our medicines and the graffiti on our walls. Read the fillers, so rich in self-esteem, that come spilling out of your monthly statement from the electric company and the telephone company and the bank. Read menus and catalogues and second-class mail. Nose about in obscure crannies of the newspaper, like the Sunday real estate section — you can tell the temper of a society by what patio accessories it wants. Our daily landscape is thick with absurd messages and portents. Notice them. They not only have a certain social significance; they are often just quirky enough to make a lead that’s different from everybody else’s.
The greatest delights of this book are the examples of good writing that Zinsser has collected over the years. Consider this excerpt, from the science writer Moshe Safdie:
Economy and survival are the two key words in nature. Examined out of context, the neck of the giraffe seems un economically long, but it is economical in view of the fact that most of the giraffe’s food is high on the tree. Beauty as we understand it, and as we admire it in nature, is never arbitrary.
Zinsser provides it as a reminder of how the greatest, most revelatory points are in the smallest of details. But it also supports a larger theme in his work, which is that some writing can be taught, but the most important lessons must be absorbed through a lifetime of reading.
Not just any reading will do. The ambitious writer should steer clear of “journalese” and instead follow a carefully curated list of great writers. Zinsser provides one such list in the final section of his book, which includes some 50 works that helped him become a master of the form.
