Book Notes: On Writing Well, by William Zinsser

Here are some notes from On Writing Well, a fantastic book on writing by William Zinsser.

• The product any writer has to sell is not the subject, but who he or she is.  People will read YOU before they will read what you write.
• Clutter is the disease of American writing. The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.
• If the reader is lost, it’s usually because the writer hasn’t been careful enough
• Writing is hard work.  A clear sentence is no accident.
• Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there.  Say “free” not “free up.”  Don’t call it a tall skyscraper.  Something cannot be very unique and a person cannot be totally flabbergasted.  Most first drafts can be cut by 50% without losing any information or losing the author’s voice.
• Trying to add style is like adding a toupee.
• People will care if you tell them something interesting.
• Never say anything in writing that you wouldn’t comfortably say in conversation.
• The secret of writing is to write for yourself.
• Any writer who uses “ain’t” and “tendentious” in the same sentence, who quotes without using quotation marks, knows what he’s doing.
• Don’t assume because an article is in a newspaper or a magazine it must be good.
• Care deeply about words and write with a respect for the English language.
• You learn to write by writing.
• There is no last word on a subject.  Think small.  Decide what corner of your subject you’re going to bite off, and be content to cover it well and stop.
• The most important sentence in any article is the first one.
• Rewriting is the essence of writing well.  Let go of the emotional attachment to your first draft.
• When you use a quotation, start the sentence with it.
• When you interview people, look for the human element.  Nobody can write a decent article about the disappearance of small towns in Iowa; it would be all generalization and no humanity.
• Readers identify with people, not with vague concepts or abstractions.
• Write normal.  Parents, stockholders, customers, and people all want plain talk.
• On the comic strip Blondie, which ran for 40 years (or 14,500 strips), Chic Young said, “it’s durable because it’s simple.  It’s build on four things that everybody does: sleeping, eating, raising a family and making money.  I try to keep Dagwood in a world that people are used to.  He never does anything as special as playing golf, and the people who come to the door are just the people that an average family has to deal with.”
• A writer who deals with the ordinary will never run out of material.
• If you bring to the assignment your general intelligence and your humanity, you can write about any subject.
• Fixating on the finish article deflects from early decisions to determine its shape and voice and content.
• Don’t always write like an expert…readers like to feel superior.

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