On Becoming a Better Writer

One of the most important components of this course was William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. (Notice I said, “One of the most important components...,” not “I think one of the most important components....”) I did not agree 100% will all of his suggestions, but most of his ideas were logical.

Like Strunk & White, Zinsser advises us to trash any superfluous words. (Is “superfluous” too complex for this piece, Mr. Zinsser?) For the most part, this is good advice. Already in this piece, I’ve resisted the urge to write, “I think that,” and used “were” instead of “seemed to be.” Zinsser recommends “clean” writing without frills or jargon. Each word must have a purpose and value. Important words should stay, useless words should go.

He also recommends we take the time to write a good lead. Whether it be one sentence or one paragraph, we need to capture our audiences’ attention.

The section about the school administrators relearning how to write struck me the most. Here are people who are teaching our kids to write, yet they cannot craft a simple letter to their students’ parents. By creating friendly pieces with easy vocabulary, administrators and businesspeople can reach their intended audience. In addition, personalizing the piece (using the dreaded “I”) can make a reader feel as though the text was written for him and not by some emotionless robot.

Finally, I appreciated Zinsser’s advice to write for ourselves, and not for anyone else. If we like our pieces, someone else may like them, too. If we try to please everyone or hijack a style that is not our own, we will lose our voice.

There were some parts of the book that failed to capture my attention. For example, the entire section on boring writing was extremely boring. Zinsser told us not to lose our readers, yet his writing was so dull that I skimmed through several pages.

In the section about memoirs, Zinsser talked about his article on a childhood toy. Although his audience may not have had direct experience with that particular toy, Zinsser said his readers could still relate to the story of having a favorite childhood toy. This made the piece relevant to all readers. However, earlier in the book he wrote about baseball. In fact, there was an entire chapter on sports. I could not relate to this chapter at all, and often skimmed the parts about baseball. Zinsser, you’re not holding my attention!

Overall, the book is a worthwhile read, and I will surely keep it on hand.