A Writing Guide for Every Desk
Zinsser's Non-Fiction Classic a Great Holiday Gift for Any Writer
Here is one of the best guides to writing non-fiction well. It would be a terrific addition to a writer's reference shelf.
It seems that there are almost as many books about how to write as there are writers writing, and every year new books on the subject are published. Some of these are helpful, and others are not, but only a handful of these books are classics that endure, and are reissued again and again. On Writing Well, by William Zinsser (HarperCollins Publishers, 2006) is one such classic.
Thirtieth Anniversary Edition
This is the 30th anniversary edition of this book which, since 1976, has helped generations of writers to learn how to write well.
William Zinsser’s illustrious career as a writer, editor, and teacher began at the New York Herald Tribune. He has taught writing at Yale, among other universities, and is the author of many other books, including Writing About Your Life (Marlowe and Company, 2005).
On Writing Well may be the book for which he is best known. In twenty-five chapters, beginning with “The Transaction”, and ending with the wonderfully titled “Write as Well as You Can”, Zinsser sets out his arguments about writing.
Write As Well As You Can
In “The Transaction” he warns that “ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is.” In “Write as Well as You Can”, he writes about his mother, who “regularly clipped columns and articles out of the paper that delighted her with their graceful use of language ... or their original vision of life.” It was because of her that he knew “that what matters is the writing itself, not the medium where it’s published.”
Zinsser Inspires Writers
The additional twenty-three chapters are equally inspiring. He discusses such topics as “Simplicity”, “Style”, “Writing About People: The Interview”, and “Science and Technology”, to name a few. Every chapter is clear and inviting, and begs rereading whenever you are stuck with writing that is leaden and dull, or when you’re questioning if being a writer is really a good or sensible vocation for an adult.
The introduction to this edition begins with a story about a photograph of the writer E.B. White, that hangs in Zinsser’s office. The photograph of the then old man shows White at “a plain wooden bench at a plain wooden table … typing on a manual typewriter,” with a wastebasket nearby. The image sums up Zinsser’s philosophy of writing. “White has everything he needs: a writing implement, a piece of paper, and a receptacle for all the sentences that didn’t come out the way he wanted them to,” Zinsser explains. If White had a copy of On Writing Well on that table, I would agree.
