On On Writing Well

William Zinsser died last Tuesday. His book On Writing Well is a non-fiction writer’s Bible, although I would argue that it is as useful for fiction writers. I frequently defer to Zinsser’s direction to strike through superfluous phrases and ideas. Most of the time, my original essays and stories are riddled with unnecessary sentences and words. His advice to “simplify, prune and strive for order” is in the back of my mind as I revise.

Writing is difficult enough. Editing and revising so that your writing is clear and meaningful is a further challenge. Frankly, it is impossible for some writers, which is why I am an editor and proofreader. I do not imagine that my own writing is perfect and I know that, to refine longer fiction pieces, I need to focus on my craft as much as I do in shorter ones.

What William Zinsser taught me and multitudes of other writers is to keep writing clear and specific. Instead of paraphrasing his words, however, I will share some of the passages that I have highlighted in my copy of On Writing Well. Let me know if you think this advice does not apply to both non-fiction and fiction.

• “You are writing primarily to please yourself, and if you go about it with enjoyment you will also entertain the readers who are worth writing for.”
• “You’ll never make your mark as a writer unless you develop a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning that is almost obsessive.”
• “Bear in mind, when you’re choosing words and stringing them together, how they sound. This may seem absurd: readers read with their eyes. But in fact they hear what they are reading far more than you realize. Therefore such matters as rhythm and alliteration are vital to every sentence…Good writers of prose must be part poet, always listening to what they write.”
• “Surprisingly often a difficult problem in a sentence can be solved by simply getting rid of it.”
• “Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it’s where the game is won or lost. That idea is hard to accept.”
• “You won’t write well until you understand that writing is a process, not a finished product.”

Whether you are a fiction or non-fiction writer, if you haven’t already done so, I urge you to read this book. Like Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and On Writing by Stephen King, it is loaded with useful knowledge about the craft of writing.

I know that On Writing Well will continue to be a tool for many writers, but it will suffer a little without Zinsser. There will be no more updates to this seminal book. His guidance cannot reflect current writing trends, like a chapter he added on memoir writing in 2006. But his voice telling will always be important as writers begin and edit their writing. In essence, he desired that we come to a clear and specific point.

With that in mind, I will bid adieu (a phrase he would have struck from his final draft because it is cliché) to a man who had a singular focus: to help writers write well. Goodbye and thank you.