William Zinsser

On Writing Well

• The medium of writing and reading changed. But nothing has replaced the writer.
  • “Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is.”
• The essence of writing is rewriting
  • “Professional writers rewrite their sentences over and over and then rewrite what they have rewritten.”
  • “Writing is an evolving process, not a finished product. Nobody expects you to get it right the first time, or even the second time.”
• Writing is coding acting on humans instead of machines
  • “Perhaps the writer has switched pronouns in midsentence, 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.”
    • This sounds like a debugging to me
• The two most important qualities of good writing: humanity and warmth
  • Write like you talk. Be yourself.
    • Personal anecdotes are warm, and easy to write with confidence.
• Writers often don’t know what they are trying to say
  • This is why I use evergreen notes because it forces you to say something in one (or few) sentence(s)
• Occam’s razor in writing—strip every sentence to its cleanest components.
  • “You have to strip your writing down before you can build it back up.”
    • It’s easier to make good argument with easy to understand sentences
      • Deconstruct, then reconstruct
• Don’t address imaginary readers. Think about someone specific.
  • “I don’t want to meet “one”—he’s a boring guy.”
  • “We have become a society fearful of revealing who we are.”
  • “Leaders who bob and weave like aging boxers don’t inspire confidence—or deserve it. The same thing is true of writers.”
• Avoid the anonymous ‘one’—use ‘I’ and ‘me’ and ‘we’ and ‘us’ instead.
  • The technique also applies to negotiation. Check my note on the Pinocchio Effect.
• “Readers don’t know what they want to read until they read it.”
  • Steve Jobs: “Customers don’t know what they want until we’ve shown them.”
    • Write for yourself, and don’t aim for the average readers.
• “The race in writing is not to the swift but to the original”
• Get in the habit of using dictionaries
• Good writers of prose must be part poet
  • Listen to what you write. Read everything aloud before letting it go out into the world.
    • Use every medium possible. Write by ear.
• “All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem.”
• Unity of pronoun, of tense, and of mood
  • Unity satisfies your reader’s subconscious need for order
    • Unity is a good constraint
• Ask yourself before you start: “How much do I want to cover?” “What one point do I want to make?”
  • “Decide what corner of your subject you’re going to bite off, and be content and cover it well and stop.”
    • Narrow down both what you want to say and your material
      • I think this is another reason why personal anecdotes are strong
    • Every writing must be reduced to a project. A project leaving the reader with one—not two, or five—provocative thought.
      • Single point constraint is a good constraint.
        • “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.”
      • And well defined projects are completable, and allow you to take small steps
• The very first sentence is disproportionally important
  • The last sentence of each paragraph is also crucial
• Collect more material than you will use
  • Don’t let your sample dictate what you write about. Avoid empiricism.
  • Collect more material until you see a diminishing return from doing so
  • Look everywhere for your material. Throw in some randomness.
    • Expect to find them in places where you least expect them to be.
• Use narrative instinct to your advantage
  • Look for ways to convey your information in narrative form
• “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.”
  • Stop when you start writing “In sum…”—if you made your argument, readers can do the rest.
• Surprise is the most refreshing element in writing
  • Look for them. Use them in your writing. End with them because it lingers.
• Make active verbs activate your sentence
  • Use precise verbs
    • Get specific in expression
• Avoid using adjectives as decoration—they will have proper power only if used sparsely
• “Humor is best achieved by understatement, and there’s nothing subtle about an exclamation point.”
  • Don’t notify the reader that you are making a joke or being ironic—exclamation points are naive.
  • Also avoid over-explaining—readers can figure out what follows your “surprisingly,” ”predictably,” and “of course.” It makes your writing unsurprising and predictable.
    • Write like your diary
• Don’t repeat yourself—use “yet” and ”nonetheless” over “despite the fact that…”
• You can start your sentence with “but.” Notify the reader if you are shifting direction.
• Avoid sentences full of abstract nouns. Get people doing things—get specific.
• Don’t overstate. Trust your material—who could invent all the astonishing things that really happen?

  “Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable” – Arthur Conan Doyle

• Be truthful—the reader can sense it if otherwise, and that’s not a risk worth taking
• “Surprisingly often a difficult problem in a sentence can be solved by simply getting rid of it.”
• “Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual—it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.”
  • Short paragraphs are more inviting
• Write for yourself—people write better and with more enjoyment if they write about what they care about.
  • Write about your hobbies. Write about your work.
• You are both what you write and how you write
  • With the internet, our first encounter with someone is more online than in real life—your writing often defines their first impression of you.
    • “My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity, and humanity.”
      • Write like you talk because that’s warm
        • We have a deep yearning for human contact
  • “What you write is often the only chance you’ll get to present yourself to someone whose business or money or good will you need.”
  • “If you work for an institution, whatever your job, whatever your level, be yourself when you write. You will stand out as a real person among the robots”

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Writing to Learn

• Writing is a form of thinking—those who think clearly can write as well as the best writer.
  • “Writing and thinking and learning were the same process.”
    • But writing is more physical than reading because you put your thoughts on paper—making it easier for you to see the gap between what you want to say and how you said it. The difference is a useful piece of information.
• Learning—expect to find them in places where you least expect them to be.
  • Surprise is the key to learning.
• Knowledge is not compartmented—it’s all one house and “writing is the key that opens the door.”
• Learn by imitation
  • Read your favorite writers, and study them.
• The essence of writing is rewriting
  • Very few can say what they want to say on their first try
    • It’s important to iterate—just like with startups.
• You need good, clean sentences. But you also need good, clean paragraphs.
  • Deconstruct, then reconstruct
• You’ll see what you know and what you still need to know when trying to write clearly
  • Clear writing pushes you to new areas of knowledge—clarity will clear a way for you.
    • Write down your problems, clearly.