On Writing Well: The Essential Guide to Mastering Nonfiction Writing and Effective Communication

William Zinsser’s "On Writing Well" is a must-read for anyone looking to improve their nonfiction writing skills. With its clear structure and practical advice, Zinsser emphasizes the importance of simplicity, clarity, and voice in writing. One of the book’s standout features is its conversational tone, making it accessible and engaging for writers at any level. Zinsser shares personal anecdotes and experiences, which not only illustrate his points but also keep the reader engaged. His emphasis on the writer's unique perspective is refreshing, encouraging writers to find their own voice rather than simply follow trends. The chapters cover various aspects of writing, from the importance of revision to understanding the structures of different types of nonfiction. Zinsser’s insights into the writing process are both practical and motivational, helping writers to overcome common challenges like self-doubt and writer’s block. What makes Zinsser’s guide classic is its enduring wisdom. Although written decades ago, the principles laid out in this book remain relevant today in our fast-paced, information-driven world. Overall, "On Writing Well" is not just a guide; it’s a companion for anyone who wants to write better and convey their message more effectively. Highly recommended for aspiring writers, editors, and anyone who wants to sharpen their writing craft.

I read On Writing Well by William Zinsser twice. I loved this book. sOn Writing Well embodies what excellent writing should be. At first I thought the book would be a dull "how to write" book, much like a cookbook, without a lot of creativity. Instead, On Writing Well has depth and soul. It challenges me to ask, what can I achieve for the glory of God if I implement these nuggets of wisdom? On Writing Well gives me a high standard to emulate and debunks many myths perpetrated by people I consider more knowledgeable than myself. This book is a gift to anyone who takes writing seriously. I also believe there is a spiritual battle waged in Christian writing. The evil one does not want God's glory to be revealed in human creativity. If he can persuade Christian writers through mediocrity and deception that publishing articles or books is the ultimate goal without a passion for truth, beauty, and redemption, our writing will be compromised. We will sacrifice our best-God's creativity--for a cheap counterfeit. As Zinsser states so well, we need role models who exhibit good writing that we can copy to help us develop our own style. I also feel "normal" now knowing I am not "crazy" with my compulsion to rewrite things over and over as I fidget for the right construction. I take comfort in knowing at least Zinsser does the same thing. There are too many good points On Writing Well to summarize in a few short paragraphs, so I want to break them down into the four parts of the book as Zinsser presented them. Part I Principles All these principles would apply equally to fiction and nonfiction. 1. Good writing must exhibit humanity and warmth. A writer's product is himself, not the subject that he is writing about. 2. Write clearly and eliminate all clutter. 3. Be yourself on paper as you are in person. 4. Write the way that is most natural to you. 5. Write to please yourself--I like to think I am writing to please God. To paraphrase from the Bible, whatever I do, do it as if I am doing it unto the Lord, and give Him the glory. That means the reader deserves the best I have to offer. 6. Writing is art through imitation. 7. Avoid journalese and cheap words--the world has enough of them already (I know because I caption them every day). Instead, surprise the reader with the rhythm and cadence of verbs and nouns that express vitality and beauty in unexpected ways. 8. Respect the English language and write correctly--it will show you care about the reader and respect his intelligence. Part II Methods All these principles would apply equally to fiction and nonfiction. 2. Unity ensures orderliness in terms of presentation, pronoun, tense, and mood. 3. Enthusiasm will keep the reader engaged. 4. Leave the reader with one new thought or idea to consider after he finishes your story. 5. Be flexible--let your writing take you where it wants to go. Trust your material. 6. Make your lead so compelling that the reader can't put your book down. 7. Always have more material to draw from than you think you will need. 8. Look for the story in your writing--people love stories. 9. Know when to end (I have read my share of great books that I never finished because I became bored in the waning chapters). 10. Use active and precise verbs and adjectives. Avoid overuse of adverbs. My translation is, if it sounds like writing, it's a poor substitute. My favorite books are those where I get lost in the story--I have been transported to another world or another time and forget I am reading until something or somebody disturbs me. 11. Omit the "little qualifiers." In my book Children of Dreams, I did a word search for qualifiers I tend to overuse like "very" and removed them. I also did a search for exclamation points--most of those came out also. The change in overall appearance was stunning. 12. Avoid contractions like "I'd, he'd, and we'd." I don't write these words captioning because I don't like them (they don't exist in my captioning dictionary), so I am glad to know I don't ever need to write them. 13. Don't overstate. I have been turned off by writers who overstated a fact. My translation is, don't insult the reader's intelligence. 14. Don't compare your writing to others. Your only competition is with yourself. 15. If something can't be fixed, take it out. In captioning parlance, when in doubt, take it out. Better not to caption it than to caption it wrong. 16. Keep paragraphs short. 17. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. Part III Forms (Noted for my own edification) 1. Dramatic nonfiction should have no inferring or fabricating, but a condensing of time and events is acceptable to tell the story, raising the craft of writing nonfiction to art. 2. Seize control of style and substance when writing about people and places; take unusual care with details. 3. A memoir covers a short span of time and is not autobiographical. Use sound, smell, touch and rich remembrance to allow the reader to enjoy the journey alongside you. 4. When writing science, write as an ordinary person, sequentially, and never forget the human element is what will make the story come alive. 5. Strip from business writing all the extra "lingo" and write with what Zinsser calls the four articles of faith: Clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity. 6. Sports writing is rich in opportunity for nonfiction writers--a source of material for social change and social history. Strip away the sports jargon and write with active verbs and colorful adjectives. (This chapter spoke to me personally as it takes months of training to become a competent sports captioner. Because I hope to incorporate sports into my creative writing, I'm glad to know that good sports writing eliminates the junkie lingo that I caption every day). 7. Criticism is a serious intellectual act undertaken by those trained in the area of inquiry. The first qualification should be to love the type of art being critiqued. 8. Humor is the secret ingredient to nonfiction writing that adds zest and joy to truth and life. Part IV Attitudes The following would apply to fiction except for 6 through 10. All would apply to nonfiction. 1. Avoid cheap writing, clichés, and breeziness. Develop a style that the reader with recognize as "your voice." 2. Write with sincerity. Your best credential is yourself. 3. Focus on process, not outcome. Zinsser calls it, "The Tyranny of the Final Product." 4. Quest and intention should guide us in our writing. Quest is the search for meaning and intention is what we wish to accomplish--the soul of our writing. 5. Writing is about making decisions, and ultimately, where you wish to take the reader on your journey. 6. Consider the resonance of the words you choose and its emotional impact on the reader. 7. As a nonfiction writer, "You must get on the plane." (I think about the adoption of my two daughters from Nepal and Vietnam. My book Children of Dreams is about their adoptions. If I never got on the plane, I wouldn't have them. Neither would the reader have my book. 8. When writing memoir, choose one point of view to preserve unity; i.e., writing from the viewpoint of the child versus the adult looking back. They are different kinds of writing. 9. Remember, when writing memoir, it's your story. Memoirs should have a redemptive quality--readers won't connect with whining. 10. Organize your memoir through a series of reductions, focusing on the small stories tucked away in memory. The reader will connect because the stories will resonate with universal truth. 11. Strive to write the best you can. Give all of yourself. The reader deserves the best you have to offer.

LOVED this book. Wish I had been required to read it while working towards my bachelor’s. Perfect for those looking to sharpen their writing skills for personal, or educational purposes. Easy to read and understand. Love it!

As the title hints this book is a guide to writing nonfiction. This book is NOT a how-to write recipe book, rather one on fundamentals and principles. William structures his work into four sections through which he addresses the craft of writing. The first section is one on principles (The Transaction, Simplicity, Clutter, Style, The Audience, Words and Usage). These principles according to the author can be learned through experience, but require effort as writing is hard. The call of this section is one for uttermost simplicity and clarity. The second section is on methods (Unity, The Lead and the Ending, and Bits & Pieces). Theses methods address the structure of one's written piece, the importance of flow, and consistency. In addition, the fundamental concept of rewriting - being the essence of writing well - is also discussed. The third section discusses the different forms of writing (Nonfiction as Literature, The Interview, The Travel Article, The Memoir, Science and Technology, Business Writing, Sports, Writing About the Arts, and Humor). This section focuses on the nuances of each of the mentioned forms, and the associated considerations. I found the section on business writing particularly interesting and applicable. Finally the fourth and last section is on attitudes (The Sound of Your Voice, Enjoyment, Fear and Confidence, The Tyranny of the Final Product, A Writer's Decision, Write as Well as You Can). In this section the author exposes the human side of writing with all the emotions, hardships and successes that come with it. He aims to instill confidence into writers and promotes them to trust their instinct and take action. Overall, a very insightful book on the topic of writing non-fiction. What I particularly enjoyed is the plethora of examples and excerpts through which the author presented the concepts. This made the book very practical. On the critical side, given the breadth inherent in such a topic (writing), the book did not have a lot of depth in the areas presented. Below are some excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful: 1-On email: "Just because they are writing with ease and enjoyment doesn't mean they are writing well." 2-On interviewing people: "Writing is a public trust...When you get people talking, handle what they say as you would handle a valuable gift." 3-"The best gift you have to offer when you write personal history is the gift of yourself. Give yourself permission to write about yourself, and have a good time doing it." 4-On writing class: "In short, our class began by striving first for humor and hoping to wing a few truths along the way. We ended by striving for truth and hoping to add humor along the way. Ultimately we realized that the two are intertwined." 5-"Writing is related to character. If your values are sound, your writing will be sound. It all begins with your intention." 6-"If you like to write better than everybody else, you have to want to write better than everybody else. You must take pride in the smallest details of your craft. And you must be willing to defend what you've written against the various middlemen - editors, agents and publishers - whose sights may be different from yours, whose standards not as high." 7-On attitude: "A reporter once asked him (Joe DiMaggio) how he managed to play so well so consistently, and he said - "I always thought that there was at least one person in the stands who had never seen me play, and I didn't want to let him down."

I'm about 5 chapters in. the book is clear and concise and easy to read, with good ideas.

I bought this book for my feature writing course. This book has 25 Chapters, organized into four parts: Principles, Methods, Forms and Attitudes. The first part focuses on the principles of writing. It provides several guidelines for a craft of writing which includes: Write simple, clutter free sentences; adopt a style so that reader can recognize you as someone special; write for yourself; choose simple and proper words; and lastly, get into the habit of using dictionaries. Part two shows the method of writing. This part teaches you that unity of pronoun, verbs, and mood are the anchors of good writing. It further instructs readers that, in feature writing, the lead must capture the reader immediately and force him or her to keep reading. In the same way, the end should take readers by surprise. Next, it suggests readers to use active verbs, avoid adverbs and adjectives as much as possible. Lastly, it provides guidelines for proper punctuation. Part three covers writing about the different form of nonfiction, including writing about people, places, memoirs, science and technology, business writing, sports, arts, humor, etc. In any of these forms, it suggests writing with clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity. In addition, it calls for using first person, active verbs, and avoiding long words and vague nouns. The last part imparts knowledge about the attitudes. The sound of your voice should be so relaxed that you hear the author talking to you, which requires strenuous effort and constant refining; crude, corny and verbose are enemies of good writing. Besides, it recommends avoiding cheap slang, shoddy sentences, windy philosophizing, and cliché, the enemy of taste. Next, it inspires its readers to write about subjects that interest them and they care about. Though the title of the book suggests that it is a guide to writing nonfiction, it is also for all those people who want to know about the craft of writing. In the end, this book suggests adding humor and surprise to writing, the question is how to be humorous in writing. The recipe is not given.

“Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.” – E.B. White “Writing is the geometry of the soul.” – Plato In On Writing Well – The Classic Guide To Nonfiction, William Zinsser writes an easy-to-follow no-nonsense approach into the core essentials of writing. Providing a smattering of meticulous examples, On Writing Well does a lucid job of clearing up some of the confusion writers might have about style, methods, leads, endings, et al., while setting the foundation for a stronger individual repertoire. In fact, regarding this, Zinsser speaks about the importance of everyone to have good writing skills given today’s newfound environment where a lot of communication takes place through the emails, the internet and so on. This is crucial since most of us employ the tool of writing in a daily fashion. Zinsser urges individuals to seek to sharpen their skill set in order to become better communicators simply by employing tenets in this book. As hinted to before, Zinsser also make incisive use of many salient examples throughout the book by breaking them down and suggesting some writing tips in cogent fashion. Within these examples the author covers people, places, science and technology, writing within a job, writing about sports, and more. Broken down into four parts, the book covers [1] Principles, where notions such as clutter and style are covered, [2] Methods, where leads and endings are covered, [3] Forms, where various forms of nonfiction are explored at length and [4] Attitudes within writing, which is self explanatory. All parts offer ample insights, many of which would be useful to nigh all individuals nowadays, especially if you have to write anything on a daily basis, whether it is emails, memos, etc. and are new to writing. To accomplish sound things in life, one needs an ironclad scaffolding upon which to set oneself in. Writing well is no different. The insights provided by this book will help those that employ them. Couple the tenets in this book with those of those within The Elements of Style, and one has the recipe for success. Both have helped me quite a bit, as I hope they help you.

Do you know how to write? I asked myself this before buying the book. I didn’t know the answer. My writing experience through college was that the professors assumed that I knew how to write, assigned a paper, and then graded it with no feedback. I wrote a lot but didn’t learn a lot about writing. Since college, I had started writing again. I had picked up a few tips here and there from reading books and blogs. I felt like I knew what I was doing. Then my friend recommended me this book. It made me question what it means to write well. I knew what I thought writing well meant, but I didn’t know what successful authors thought it meant. That ignorance made me decide to buy the book. Reading this book was a journey — it started out great, then dragged on and became unbearable, and then ended on a high note with the most useful information. The beginning either taught me keys to writing well or reinforced ones that I already knew: write with confidence; speak from the first person; tell your story; use a unique perspective; and use peculiar phrases to keep the reader attentive. Then came the descent. Zinsser is a great writer, but not the best teacher. I wasn’t sure I took away all the key points. Each chapter covers a different subject, with a lot of points scattered throughout the paragraphs. I’m not sure I picked up on everything he writes about. It would have been easier if he ended each chapter with bullet points of the key takeaways, or ended it with questions that ask the reader if they understood the key points. Then Part 3 put me to sleep. Part 3 is about writing about different subjects. The problem again is how the material is presented. Each chapter is about a different subject. In each of them are many passages from other writers that he uses as examples to analyze. He often quotes a passage, spends a paragraph or two analyzing it, and then jumps straight to the next passage with no clear delineation. I found myself drifting off for a page or two and then realizing I didn’t know what I was reading. I had to go back and re-read often. If he had made clear breaks, like starting each passage on the next page, giving each passage a header, or some other visual break, it would have been much easier. Not only was Part 3 hard to follow, he didn’t always appear to be an expert on the subject he was talking about. I don’t consider myself a funny person, but I learned nothing about humor from reading his chapter on the subject. He states that he has taught classes on humor writing — suggesting he has expert insights — but he only provides common knowledge: don’t explain jokes, and don’t repeat them. But suffering through Part 3 was worth it. Part 4 contains the most valuable information in the book. He breaks down one of his own articles piece by piece and offers his thought process on writing. I got a lot out of it. He gives a lot of useful tips: think what the reader wants to know next after each sentence; the last sentence of each paragraph should springboard to the next paragraph; know when to end an article; and have a strong ending.