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On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction Paperback – 5 April 2016
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"On Writing Well is a bible for a generation of writers looking for clues to clean, compelling prose." –New York Times
A beloved classic, this definitive volume on the art of writing nonfiction celebrates its thirtieth anniversary.
On Writing Well, which grew out of a course that William Zinsser taught at Yale, has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity, and for the warmth of its style. It is a book for anybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does. Whether you want to write about people or places, science and technology, business, sports, the arts, or about yourself in the increasingly popular memoir genre, On Writing Well offers you both fundamental principles as well as the insights of a distinguished practitioner. With over a million copies in print, this volume has stood the test of time and remains a valued resource for writers and would-be writers.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Publication date5 April 2016
- Reading age15 - 18 years
- ISBN-109780060891541
- ISBN-13978-0060891541
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Review
“Not since The Elements of Style has there been a guide to writing as well presented and readable as this one. A love and respect for the language is evident on every page.” -- Library Journal
About the Author
William Zinsser is a writer, editor and teacher. He began his career on the New York Herald Tribune and has since written regularly for leading magazines. During the 1970s he was master of Branford College at Yale. His 17 books, ranging from baseball to music to American travel, include the influential Writing to Learn and Writing About Your Life. He teaches at the New School in New York.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition
The Classic Guide to Writing NonfictionBy William ZinsserHarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright ©2006 William ZinsserAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0060891548
Chapter One
The Transaction
A school in Connecticut once held "a day devoted to the arts," and I was asked if I would come and talk about writing as a vocation. When I arrived I found that a second speaker had been invited -- Dr. Brock (as I'll call him), a surgeon who had recently begun to write and had sold some stories to magazines. He was going to talk about writing as an avocation. That made us a panel, and we sat down to face a crowd of students and teachers and parents, all eager to learn the secrets of our glamorous work.
Dr. Brock was dressed in a bright red jacket, looking vaguely bohemian, as authors are supposed to look, and the first question went to him. What was it like to be a writer?
He said it was tremendous fun. Coming home from an arduous day at the hospital, he would go straight to his yellow pad and write his tensions away. The words just flowed. It was easy. I then said that writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed.
Next Dr. Brock was asked if it was important to rewrite. Absolutely not, he said. "Let it all hang out," he told us, and whatever form the sentences take will reflect the writer at his most natural. I then said that rewriting is the essence of writing. I pointed out that professional writers rewrite their sentences over and over and then rewrite what they have rewritten.
"What do you do on days when it isn't going well?" Dr. Brock was asked. He said he just stopped writing and put the work aside for a day when it would go better. I then said that the professional writer must establish a daily schedule and stick to it. I said that writing is a craft, not an art, and that the man who runs away from his craft because he lacks inspiration is fooling himself. He is also going broke.
"What if you're feeling depressed or unhappy?" a student asked. "Won't that affect your writing?"
Probably it will, Dr. Brock replied. Go fishing. Take a walk. Probably it won't, I said. If your job is to write every day, you learn to do it like any other job.
A student asked if we found it useful to circulate in the literary world. Dr. Brock said he was greatly enjoying his new life as a man of letters, and he told several stories of being taken to lunch by his publisher and his agent at Manhattan restaurants where writers and editors gather. I said that professional writers are solitary drudges who seldom see other writers.
"Do you put symbolism in your writing?" a student asked me.
"Not if I can help it," I replied. I have an unbroken record of missing the deeper meaning in any story, play or movie, and as for dance and mime, I have never had any idea of what is being conveyed.
"I love symbols!" Dr. Brock exclaimed, and he described with gusto the joys of weaving them through his work.
So the morning went, and it was a revelation to all of us. At the end Dr. Brock told me he was enormously interested in my answers -- it had never occurred to him that writing could be hard. I told him I was just as interested in his answers -- it had never occurred to me that writing could be easy. Maybe I should take up surgery on the side.
As for the students, anyone might think we left them bewildered. But in fact we gave them a broader glimpse of the writing process than if only one of us had talked. For there isn't any "right" way to do such personal work. There are all kinds of writers and all kinds of methods, and any method that helps you to say what you want to say is the right method for you. Some people write by day, others by night. Some people need silence, others turn on the radio. Some write by hand, some by word processor, some by talking into a tape recorder. Some people write their first draft in one long burst and then revise; others can't write the second paragraph until they have fiddled endlessly with the first.
But all of them are vulnerable and all of them are tense. They are driven by a compulsion to put some part of themselves on paper, and yet they don't just write what comes naturally. They sit down to commit an act of literature, and the self who emerges on paper is far stiffer than the person who sat down to write. The problem is to find the real man or woman behind the tension.
Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is. I often find myself reading with interest about a topic I never thought would interest me -- some scientific quest, perhaps. What holds me is the enthusiasm of the writer for his field. How was he drawn into it? What emotional baggage did he bring along? How did it change his life? It's not necessary to want to spend a year alone at Walden Pond to become involved with a writer who did.
This is the personal transaction that's at the heart of good nonfiction writing. Out of it come two of the most important qualities that this book will go in search of humanity and warmth. Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author. It's a question of using the English language in a way that it will achieve the greatest clarity and strength.
Can such principles be taught? Maybe not. But most of them can be learned.
Continues...
Excerpted from On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Editionby William Zinsser Copyright ©2006 by William Zinsser. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : 0060891548
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780060891541
- ISBN-13 : 978-0060891541
- Reading age : 15 - 18 years
- Best Sellers Rank: 5,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 5 in Publishing Reference
- 27 in Writing Reference
- 31 in Professional & Workplace Communication
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My favourite part is that dedicated to the basics: what not to do when writing, and specifically how to avoid, as the author calls it, the "clutter", with many examples of that "clutter": how banks, insurance companies, large corporations and, most obviously and constantly, the politians use the language not to explain, but to conceal what they mean, or to look more important; and all by means of using longer (and generally useless, many times gramaically incorrect) expressions. Thus: the very silly "at the present time" instead of the plain yet far more correct "now". There are an array of examples like this one.
As I said in the title of this review: a must have for anyone who reads or write; for anyone.

Having studied Journalism a decade ago I wish I'd had this book then. It taught me everything I should have learnt but was never taught. It demonstrates the subtleties of using the English language. Which, it seems to me, that between school, college and uni they expect you to learn but never actually teach. It took me only a week to read this book and I am a more confident writer as a result. There are some chapters that are specific to particular types of writing such as sports, or memoir so you can skip these if not suitable for your needs. This book is written by a journalist and so it is geared around getting you to write snappier more engaging pieces that would suit the news or feature stories. I wouldn't recommend it for academic writing so much.
My only criticism is Zinsser's attempt to wipe out the semi-colon in favour of the dash. How will we wink then ;)


