On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

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Clichés are one of the things you should keep listening for when you rewrite and read your successive drafts aloud. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” — Ernest Hemingway Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil — but there is no way around them.” — Isaac Asimov Never say anything in writing that you wouldn’t comfortably say in conversation. If you’re not a person who says “indeed” or “moreover,” or who calls someone an individual (“he’s a fine individual”), please don’t write it. Words

While I eventually did learn some of the secrets of good writing, it would have been a lot e asier if I’d had a book like William Zinsser’s On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction to teach me the right skills to practice. With this book in your toolkit, you’ll become a great writer much faster than you think is possible! You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.” ― Octavia E. Butler If what you’re writing doesn’t inspire you, it won’t inspire your reader, so make sure your heart is in your typing. Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of job: It’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.” — Neil Gaiman

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” — Kurt Vonnegut The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what — these are the common adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.” — Roald Dahl

Indeed, learning to write may be part of learning to read. For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading.” — Eudora Welty

Zinsser starts the “Principles” section by admitting that every writer finds their own process: there’s no right or wrong way to put words on paper. But all writing processes require vulnerability and tension, because all writers are trying to tell a basic truth that they’re holding inside. So, all writing is really a “personal transaction” between the writer and reader. Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. 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. Style Continue to build. Every paragraph should amplify the one that preceded it. Give more thought to adding solid detail and less to entertaining the reader. But take special care with the last sentence of each paragraph—it’s the crucial springboard to the next paragraph. You can practice the skills we’ve covered so far and all of the others in this book and you’ll write well. But if you don’t learn to get your heart into it, your readers won’t connect with your words. It takes enjoyment, confidence, and inspiration, but it’s not easy.

Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.” — Virginia WoolfScience and technology assignments tend to scare new writers, but they actually depend on the same basic skill as all other nonfiction: clear, logical thinking. Good science writers shape complex information into an accessible, relatable story about how specific discoveries shape people’s lives. Next, Zinsser turns to business writing, which tends to be artificial, cluttered, and uninspiring. Businesspeople should cut out the jargon and write in their own voices. This is the best way to connect with colleagues and customers, who want to hear from real people, not faceless institutions.

Don’t annoy your readers by over-explaining—by telling them something they already know or can figure out. Trust your material Attitudes You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you, and we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.” — Arthur Plotnik Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. [...] All they do is show you've been to college.” — Kurt Vonnegut At the heart of good nonfiction writing is the personal transaction of humanity and warmth. Simplicity Write drunk, edit sober” might be one of the most famous writing quotes about editing, but we can’t all outdrink Ernest Hemingway. Which is why these other words of wisdom and writing quotes exist!No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” —Robert Frost The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.” — Neil Gaiman I made mistakes, sure, but with each sentence I became a better writer. Best of all, the more I wrote, the more opportunities I seemed to get to become even better.