On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Product Information

For coverage of the arts, Zinsser encourages students not to be intimidated by their impressions of an artwork, but also to only declaim a judgment once they have absorbed as much information about the artist and the work as possible. It challenges me to ask, what can I achieve for the glory of God if I implement these nuggets of wisdom? New York TimesA beloved classic, this definitive volume on the art of writing nonfiction celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. Writing is a craft, not an art, and that the man who runs away from his craft because he lacks inspiration is fooling himself.

American author William Zinsser’s On Writing Well (1976), is a popular writing manual for high school and college students. Whether humorists are making serious political arguments or just entertaining, Zinsser argues, they have a responsibility to speak the truth. Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there.

Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil — but there is no way around them. In other passages, Zinsser notes how the rise of television, the Vietnam War, and the early days of the internet changed Americans’ reading habits. The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

The best advice on writing was given to me by my first editor, Michael Korda, of Simon and Schuster, while writing my first book. Zinsser served in the war himself, and he credits a life-changing boxcar journey across North Africa with inspiring his interest in travel and adventure. A beloved classic, this definitive volume on the art of nonfiction writing celebrates its 30th anniversary.If what you’re writing doesn’t inspire you, it won’t inspire your reader, so make sure your heart is in your typing. If all your sentences move at the same plodding gait, which even you recognize as deadly but don’t know how to cure, read them aloud.