On Writing Well by William Zinsser

2 Simplicity

But 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 thousand and one adulterants that weaken the
strength of a sentence. A

Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can’t exist without the other. It’s impossible for a
muddy thinker to write good English. He may get away with it for a paragraph or two, but soon
the reader will be lost, and there’s no sin so grave, for the reader will not easily be lured back.

If the reader is lost, it’s usually because the writer hasn’t been careful enough. That care-
lessness can take any number of forms. Perhaps a sentence is so excessively cluttered that the
reader, hacking through the verbiage, simply doesn’t know what it means. Perhaps a sentence
has been so shoddily constructed that the reader could read it in several ways. Perhaps the
writer has switched pronouns in mid- sentence, or has switched tenses, so the reader loses
track of who is talking or when the action took place. Perhaps Sentence B is not a logical sequel
to Sentence A; the writer, in whose head the connection is clear, hasn’t bothered to provide the
missing link. Perhaps the writer has used a word incorrectly by not taking the trouble to look it
up.

Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say? Surprisingly often they don’t
know. Then they must look at what they have written and ask: have I said it? Is it clear to
someone encountering the subject for the first time? If it’s not, some fuzz has worked its way
into the machinery. The clear writer is someone clearheaded enough to see this stuff for what it
is: fuzz.

Thinking clearly is a conscious act that writers must force on themselves, as if they were
working on any other project that requires logic:

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the
first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing
is hard, it’s because it is hard.

3 Clutter

Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds—the writer is always slightly behind.

Consider all the prepositions that are draped onto verbs that don’t need any help.
Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don’t serve any
purpose.

You can develop the same eye. Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be
grateful for everything you can throw away. 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.

4 Style

The point is that you have to strip your writing down before you can build it back up. You must
know what the essential tools are and what job they were designed to do. Extending the
metaphor of carpentry, it’s first necessary to be able to saw wood neatly and to drive nails.
Later you can bevel the edges or add elegant finials, if that’s your taste. But you can never
forget that you are practicing a craft that’s based on certain principles. If the nails are weak,
your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will
fall apart.

Style is organic to the person doing the writing, as much a part of him as his hair, or, if he is
bald, his lack of it. Trying to add style is like adding a toupee. At first glance the formerly bald
man looks young and even handsome. But at second glance—and with a toupee there’s always
a second glance—he doesn’t look quite right. The problem is not that he doesn’t look well
groomed; he does, and we can only admire the wigmaker’s skill. The point is that he doesn’t
look like himself.

This is the problem of writers who set out deliberately to garnish their prose. You lose whatever
it is that makes you unique. The reader will notice if you are putting on airs. Read- ers want the
person who is talking to them to sound genuine. Therefore, a fundamental rule is: be yourself.

Writers are obviously at their most natural when they write in the first person. Writing is an
intimate transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and it will go well to the extent
that it retains its humanity. Therefore, I urge people to write in the first person: to use "I" and
"me" and "we" and "us." They put up a fight.

Nevertheless, getting writers to use "I" is seldom easy. They think they must earn the right to
reveal their emotions or their thoughts. Or that it’s egotistical. Or that it’s undignified—a fear
that afflicts the academic world.

Good writers are visible just behind their words. If you aren’t allowed to use "I," at least think
"I" while you write, or write the first draft in the first person and then take the "F’s out. It will
warm up your impersonal style. Style is tied to the psyche, and writing has deep psychological
roots. The reasons why we express ourselves as we do, or fail to express ourselves because of
"writer’s block," are partly buried in the subconscious mind.

Sell yourself, and your subject will exert its own appeal. Believe in your own identity and your
own opinions. Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep
yourself going.

8 Unity

You learn to write by writing. It’s a truism, but what makes it a truism is that it’s true. The only
way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular
basis.

All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem. It may be a problem of where to obtain
the facts or how to organize the material. It may be a problem of approach or attitude, tone or
style. Whatever it is, it has to be confronted and solved.

Unity is the anchor of good writing. So, first, get your unities straight. Unity not only keeps the
reader from straggling off in all directions; it satisfies the readers' subconscious need for order
and reassures them that all is well at the helm. There- fore choose from among the many
variables and stick to your choice.

One choice is unity of pronoun. Are you going to write in the first person, as a participant, or in
the third person, as an observer? Or even in the second person, that darling of sportswriters
hung up on Hemingway?

Unity of tense is another choice. Most people write mainly in the past tense ("I went up to
Boston the other day"), but some people write agreeably in the present ("I’m sitting in the
dining car of the Yankee Limited and we're pulling into Boston"). What is not agreeable is to
switch back and forth. I’m not saying you can’t use more than one tense; the whole purpose of
tenses is to enable a writer to deal with time in its various gradations, from the past to the
hypothetical future ("When I telephoned my mother from the Boston station, I realized that if I
had written to tell her I would be coming she would have waited for me").

Another choice is unity of mood. You might want to talk to the reader in the casual voice that
The New Yorker has strenuously refined. Or you might want to approach the reader with a
certain formality to describe a serious event or to present a set of important facts. Both tones
are acceptable. In fact, any tone is acceptable. But don’t mix two or three.

Such fatal mixtures are common in writers who haven’t learned control. Travel writing is a
conspicuous example
He is a real person taking us along on a real trip, and we can identify with him and Ann.
Suddenly he turns into a travel brochure.

Then we get back to him and Ann and their efforts to eat at Chinese restaurants, and again all is
well. Everyone is interested in food, and we are being told about a personal adventure. Then
suddenly the writer is a guidebook:

Our writer is gone, and so is Ann, and so—very soon—are we. It’s not that the scuttling
sampans and the hepatitis shots shouldn’t be included. What annoys us is that the writer never
decided what kind of article he wanted to write or how he wanted to approach us.

Therefore ask yourself some basic questions before you start. For example: "In what capacity
am I going to address the reader?" (Reporter? Provider of information? Average man or
woman?) "What pronoun and tense am I going to use?" "What style?" (Impersonal reportorial?
Personal but formal? Personal and casual?) "What attitude am I going to take toward the mate-
rial?" (Involved? Detached? Judgmental? Ironic? Amused?) "How much do I want to cover?"
"What one point do I want to make?" The last two questions are especially important. Most
nonfiction writers have a definiteness complex. They feel that they are under some obligation—
to the subject, to their honor, to the gods of writing—to make their article the last word. It’s a
com- mendable impulse, but there is no last word. What you think is definitive today will turn
undefinitive by tonight, and writers who doggedly pursue every last fact will find themselves
pursuing the rainbow and never settling down to write.

Every writing project must be reduced before you start to write. Therefore think small. Decide
what corner of your subject you're going to bite off, and be content to cover it well and stop.

As for what point you want to make, every successful piece of nonfiction should leave the
reader with one provocative thought that he or she didn’t have before. Not two thoughts, or
five—just one. So decide what single point you want to leave in the reader s mind. It will not
only give you a better idea of what route you should follow and what destination you hope to
reach; it will affect your decision about tone and attitude. Some points are best made by
earnestness, some by dry understatement, some by humor.

Once you have your unities decided, there’s no material you can’t work into your frame.

w it often happens that you'll make these prior decisions and then discover that they weren’t
the right ones. The material begins to lead you in an unexpected direction, where you are more
comfortable writing in a different tone. That’s normal— the act of writing generates some
cluster of thoughts or memories that you didn’t anticipate. Don’t fight such a current if it feels
right. Trust your material if it’s taking you into terrain you didn’t intend to enter but where the
vibrations are good. Adjust your style accordingly and proceed to whatever destination you
reach. Don’t ever become the prisoner of a preconceived plan. Writing is no respecter of
blueprints.
There’s nothing in such a method to be ashamed off. Scissors and paste—or their equivalent on
a word processor—are honor- able writers' tools. Just remember that all the unities must be
fitted into the edifice you finally put together, however backwardly they may be assembled, or
it will soon come tumbling down.

9 The Lead and the Ending

The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to
proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn’t induce
him to continue to the third sentence, it’s equally dead. Of such a progression of sentences,
each tugging the reader forward until he is hooked, a writer constructs that fateful unit, the
"lead."

Every article poses a different problem, and the only valid test is: does it work? Your lead may
not be the best of all possible leads, but if it does the job it’s supposed to do, be thankful and
proceed.

Readers of a literary review expect its writers to start somewhat discursively, and they will stick
with those writers for the pleasure of wondering where they will emerge as they move in
leisurely circles toward the eventual point. But I urge you not to count on the reader to stick
around. Readers want to know— very soon—what’s in it for them. Therefore you

your lead must capture the reader immediately and force him to keep reading. It must cajole
him with fresh- ness, or novelty, or paradox, or humor, or surprise, or with an unusual idea, or
an interesting fact, or a question. Anything will do, as long as it nudges his curiosity and tugs at
his sleeve.

Next the lead must do some real work. It must provide hard details that tell the reader why the
piece was written and why he ought to read it. But don’t dwell on the reason. Coax the reader a
little more; keep him inquisitive.

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. Try to give that
sentence an extra twist of humor or surprise, like the periodic "snapper" in the routine of a
stand- up comic. Make the reader smile and you've got him for at least one more paragraph.

Another approach is to just tell a story. It’s such a simple solution, so obvious and
unsophisticated, that we often forget that it’s available to us. But narrative is the oldest and
most compelling method of holding someone's attention; everybody wants to be told a story.
Always look for ways to convey your information in narrative form.
Yet there can be no firm rules for how to write a lead. Within the broad rule of not letting the
reader get away, all writers must approach their subject in a manner that most naturally suits
what they are writing about and who they are. Sometimes you can tell your whole story in the
first sentence.

Knowing when to end an article is far more important than most writers realize. You should give
as much thought to choosing your last sentence as you did to your first. Well, almost as much.

Failure to know where that sentence should occur can wreck an article that until its final stage
has been tightly constructed. The positive reason for ending well is that a good last sentence—
or last paragraph—is a joy in itself. It gives the reader a lift, and it lingers when the article is
over.

The perfect ending should take your readers slightly by surprise and yet seem exactly right.
They didn’t expect the article to end so soon, or so abruptly, or to say what it said. But they
know it when they see it. Like a good lead, it works. It’s like the curtain line in a theatrical
comedy

For the nonfiction writer, the simplest way of putting this into a rule is: when you're ready to
stop, stop. If you have presented all the facts and made the point you want to make, look for
the nearest exit. Often it takes just a few sentences to wrap things up. Ideally they should
encapsulate the idea of the piece and conclude with a sentence that jolts us with its fitness or
unexpectedness.

Something I often do in my own work is to bring the story full circle—to strike at the end an
echo of a note that was sounded at the beginning. It gratifies my sense of symmetry, and it also
pleases the reader, completing with its resonance the journey we set out on together.

10 Bits&Pieces

Verbs
Use active verbs unless there is no comfortable way to get around using a passive verb. The
difference between an active- verb style and a passive-verb style—in clarity and vigor—is the
difference between life and death for a writer.

Verbs are the most important of all your tools. They push the sentence forward and give it
momentum. Active verbs push hard; passive verbs tug fitfully. Active verbs also enable us to
visualize an activity because they require a pronoun ("he"), or a noun ("the boy"), or a person
("Mrs. Scott") to put them in motion. Many verbs also carry in their imagery or in their sound a
suggestion of what they mean:

Make active verbs activate your sentences, and try to avoid the kind that need an appended
preposition to complete their work. Don’t set up a business that you can start or launch
Adverbs
Most adverbs are unnecessary. You will clutter your sentence and annoy the reader if you
choose a verb that has a specific meaning and then add an adverb that carries the same
meaning.

Don’t use adverbs unless they do necessary work

Adjectives
Most adjectives are also unnecessary. Like adverbs, they are sprinkled into sentences by writers
who don’t stop to think that the concept is already in the noun. This kind of prose is littered
with precipitous clifffs and lacy spiderwebs, or with adjectives denoting the color of an object
whose color is well known: yel- low daffodils and brownish dirt.

Again, the rule is simple: make your adjectives do work that needs to be done.