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Writing Well
Co-authored by two esteemed writers, Writing Well , is a beautifully-written and thoroughly readable guide to the craft of writing prose. This concise, lively text covers all aspects of writing but is best known for its signature chapters on words, sentences, and paragraphs. Going beyond the basics of composition, the text teaches originality and elegance in writing encouraging students to develop their own written voice. Sample student papers Ð including several works-in-progress - allow students to learn the writing process through the work of their peers. A brief handbook section rounds out the coverage.
382 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
9 people are currently reading
265 people want to read
About the author
Donald Hall
180 books201 followersDonald Hall was considered one of the major American poets of his generation.
His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature. Although Hall gained early success with his first collection, Exiles and Marriages (1955), his later poetry is generally regarded as the best of his career. Often compared favorably with such writers as James Dickey, Robert Bly, and James Wright, Hall used simple, direct language to evoke surrealistic imagery. In addition to his poetry, Hall built a respected body of prose that includes essays, short fiction, plays, and children’s books. Hall, who lived on the New Hampshire farm he visited in summers as a boy, was also noted for the anthologies he has edited and is a popular teacher, speaker, and reader of his own poems.
Born in 1928, Hall grew up in Hamden, Connecticut. The Hall household was marked by a volatile father and a mother who was “steadier, maybe with more access to depths because there was less continual surface,” as Hall explained in an essay for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). “To her I owe my fires, to my father my tears. I owe them both for their reading.” By age twelve, Hall had discovered the poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe: “I read Poe and my life changed,” he remarked in CAAS. Another strong influence in Hall’s early years was his maternal great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire, where he spent many summers. Decades later, he bought the same farm and settled there as a full-time writer and poet.
Hall attended Philips Exeter Academy and had his first poem published at age 16. He was a participant at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where he met Robert Frost, that same year. From Exeter, Hall went to Harvard University, attending class alongside Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery; he also studied for a year with Archibald MacLeish. Hall earned a BLitt from Oxford University and won the Newdigate contest for his poem “Exile,” one of the few Americans ever to win the prize. Returning to the United States, Hall spent a year at Stanford, studying under the poet-critic Yvor Winters, before returning to Harvard to join the prestigious Society of Fellows. It was there that Hall assembled Exiles and Marriages, a tightly-structured collection crafted in rigid rhyme and meter. In 1953, Hall also became the poetry editor of the Paris Review, a position he held until 1961. In 1957 he took a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, where he remained until 1975. While at Michigan, Hall met the young Jane Kenyon. They later married and, when Hall’s grandmother, who owned Eagle Pond Farm, passed away, bought the farm, left teaching, and moved there together. The collections Kicking the Leaves (1978) and The Happy Man (1986) reflect Hall’s happiness at his return to the family farm, a place rich with memories and links to his past. Many of the poems explore and celebrate the continuity between generations. The Happy Man won the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize. Hall’s next book, The One Day (1988), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. A long poem that meditates on the on-set of old age, The One Day, like much of Hall’s early work, takes shape under formal pressure: composed of 110 stanzas, split over three sections, its final sections are written in blank verse. The critic Frederick Pollack praised the book as possibly “the last masterpiece of American Modernism. Any poet who seeks to surpass this genre should study it; any reader who has lost interest in contemporary poetry should read it.” Old and New Poems (1990) contains several traditional poems from earlier collections, as well as more innovative verses not previously published. “Baseball,” included in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993), is the poet’s ode to the great American pastime and is structured around t
His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature. Although Hall gained early success with his first collection, Exiles and Marriages (1955), his later poetry is generally regarded as the best of his career. Often compared favorably with such writers as James Dickey, Robert Bly, and James Wright, Hall used simple, direct language to evoke surrealistic imagery. In addition to his poetry, Hall built a respected body of prose that includes essays, short fiction, plays, and children’s books. Hall, who lived on the New Hampshire farm he visited in summers as a boy, was also noted for the anthologies he has edited and is a popular teacher, speaker, and reader of his own poems.
Born in 1928, Hall grew up in Hamden, Connecticut. The Hall household was marked by a volatile father and a mother who was “steadier, maybe with more access to depths because there was less continual surface,” as Hall explained in an essay for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). “To her I owe my fires, to my father my tears. I owe them both for their reading.” By age twelve, Hall had discovered the poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe: “I read Poe and my life changed,” he remarked in CAAS. Another strong influence in Hall’s early years was his maternal great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire, where he spent many summers. Decades later, he bought the same farm and settled there as a full-time writer and poet.
Hall attended Philips Exeter Academy and had his first poem published at age 16. He was a participant at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where he met Robert Frost, that same year. From Exeter, Hall went to Harvard University, attending class alongside Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery; he also studied for a year with Archibald MacLeish. Hall earned a BLitt from Oxford University and won the Newdigate contest for his poem “Exile,” one of the few Americans ever to win the prize. Returning to the United States, Hall spent a year at Stanford, studying under the poet-critic Yvor Winters, before returning to Harvard to join the prestigious Society of Fellows. It was there that Hall assembled Exiles and Marriages, a tightly-structured collection crafted in rigid rhyme and meter. In 1953, Hall also became the poetry editor of the Paris Review, a position he held until 1961. In 1957 he took a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, where he remained until 1975. While at Michigan, Hall met the young Jane Kenyon. They later married and, when Hall’s grandmother, who owned Eagle Pond Farm, passed away, bought the farm, left teaching, and moved there together. The collections Kicking the Leaves (1978) and The Happy Man (1986) reflect Hall’s happiness at his return to the family farm, a place rich with memories and links to his past. Many of the poems explore and celebrate the continuity between generations. The Happy Man won the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize. Hall’s next book, The One Day (1988), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. A long poem that meditates on the on-set of old age, The One Day, like much of Hall’s early work, takes shape under formal pressure: composed of 110 stanzas, split over three sections, its final sections are written in blank verse. The critic Frederick Pollack praised the book as possibly “the last masterpiece of American Modernism. Any poet who seeks to surpass this genre should study it; any reader who has lost interest in contemporary poetry should read it.” Old and New Poems (1990) contains several traditional poems from earlier collections, as well as more innovative verses not previously published. “Baseball,” included in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993), is the poet’s ode to the great American pastime and is structured around t
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 29, 2016
My copy is the seventh edition from my college days. I've added many writing books to my collection in the 25 or so years since I used this book in essay writing class, but it is still one of the best writing books I own, as well as my most used reference book when teaching writing. Elegant, clear, and humorous, this book is interesting, in addition to being helpful and more complete than many of the other English manuals on my shelves.
August 26, 2022
Donald Hall is never a disappointment. I love the material as well as the examples and exercises
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September 17, 2023It is Good !
June 12, 2021
Are you starting out as a writer? Are you looking to review good writing practices and sharpen your skills? Do you want to see some really good examples of good and bad writing?
Donald Hall's 1973 text, Writing Well, delivers on all counts. Hall's writing exemplifies the guidance he provides for writing well. The title captures the point that writing is an activity. What is important is not that you meet some abstract standard of good writing, but that you write, and write well. Develop the habit of writing, and develop good habits in writing.
Hall provides the reader with many exercises. The structure of the book helps to lead you from the simple to the more complex. The chapter headings are: Words, Sentences, Paragraphs, The Paper. He also provides a handy glossary of terms, which includes examples of frequently occurring mistakes.
This is a terrific book. Now I just need to sit down and write!
Donald Hall's 1973 text, Writing Well, delivers on all counts. Hall's writing exemplifies the guidance he provides for writing well. The title captures the point that writing is an activity. What is important is not that you meet some abstract standard of good writing, but that you write, and write well. Develop the habit of writing, and develop good habits in writing.
Hall provides the reader with many exercises. The structure of the book helps to lead you from the simple to the more complex. The chapter headings are: Words, Sentences, Paragraphs, The Paper. He also provides a handy glossary of terms, which includes examples of frequently occurring mistakes.
This is a terrific book. Now I just need to sit down and write!
March 25, 2015
In general, this is one of the better books I’ve read on writing. I have a few quibbles though:
Hall tells his readers to work with feeling, to show not tell, and to avoid “abstract idea-words.” Feeling makes contact with and moves the reader whereas “names” and such do not. “Sight, taste, smell, touch, and hearing,” he writes, “carry feeling better from writer to reader – concepts don’t.” But doesn’t this depend on the subject matter and its audience? Who wants to wade through “feelings” when concepts and idea-words are richer and get you through the material faster? And, why can it not be said that, for some, high-level concepts bring pleasure? It’s also interesting that throughout this book Hall tells his reader how to write more than he “shows.” The larger issue for Hall is to make contact with the reader. Yet, when the reader is looking for meaning and information, feeling is not the aim.
Hall calls “sentimentality” fake. It is emotion that is not genuine. That’s odd, given that much of what moves the reader is “sentiment.” Also, emotion is often used to deceive a reader. He tells us to avoid “emotionalism,” implying that some form of “rationalism” is the way to go even though “rational” can be devious, including the use of “emotionalism” and the dividing line between “feeling” as technique and “feeling” as manipulation is quite thin. Hall advises us to be spare, to leave room for imagination, to avoid cuteness, yet sprinkled throughout this book are forced metaphors that make one want to scream. For example, regarding the indentation of paragraphs, Hall writes that “Those little indentations are hand- and footholds in the cliff face of the essay.” A simple period after "footholds" would have been just fine.
Hall states that “verbs act, verbs move. Verbs do. Verbs strike, soothe, grin, cry, exasperate, decline, fly, hurt, and heal. Verbs make writing go….Verbs give energy.” This is all good, strong wording I suppose, but we also know that verbs are “states of being” which are not, really, action. When we feel (love, sad, hungry) in all sorts of ways, we are not acting, though action or reaction flows from feeling states.
Hall tells us to avoid jargon. That too depends on the audience. Jargon can be useful. It gives us shortcuts. And, given his advice on jargon and abstraction, I was struck by his use of such throughout this book, including for example, this paragraph: “In the most controlled prose, in the long sentences made by writers being formal, clause follows clause, the sentence is compound as well as complex, and absolutes, participles, and appositives combine with prepositional phrases – a combination of combinations that includes, balances, and ultimately unifies.”
Hall tells his readers to work with feeling, to show not tell, and to avoid “abstract idea-words.” Feeling makes contact with and moves the reader whereas “names” and such do not. “Sight, taste, smell, touch, and hearing,” he writes, “carry feeling better from writer to reader – concepts don’t.” But doesn’t this depend on the subject matter and its audience? Who wants to wade through “feelings” when concepts and idea-words are richer and get you through the material faster? And, why can it not be said that, for some, high-level concepts bring pleasure? It’s also interesting that throughout this book Hall tells his reader how to write more than he “shows.” The larger issue for Hall is to make contact with the reader. Yet, when the reader is looking for meaning and information, feeling is not the aim.
Hall calls “sentimentality” fake. It is emotion that is not genuine. That’s odd, given that much of what moves the reader is “sentiment.” Also, emotion is often used to deceive a reader. He tells us to avoid “emotionalism,” implying that some form of “rationalism” is the way to go even though “rational” can be devious, including the use of “emotionalism” and the dividing line between “feeling” as technique and “feeling” as manipulation is quite thin. Hall advises us to be spare, to leave room for imagination, to avoid cuteness, yet sprinkled throughout this book are forced metaphors that make one want to scream. For example, regarding the indentation of paragraphs, Hall writes that “Those little indentations are hand- and footholds in the cliff face of the essay.” A simple period after "footholds" would have been just fine.
Hall states that “verbs act, verbs move. Verbs do. Verbs strike, soothe, grin, cry, exasperate, decline, fly, hurt, and heal. Verbs make writing go….Verbs give energy.” This is all good, strong wording I suppose, but we also know that verbs are “states of being” which are not, really, action. When we feel (love, sad, hungry) in all sorts of ways, we are not acting, though action or reaction flows from feeling states.
Hall tells us to avoid jargon. That too depends on the audience. Jargon can be useful. It gives us shortcuts. And, given his advice on jargon and abstraction, I was struck by his use of such throughout this book, including for example, this paragraph: “In the most controlled prose, in the long sentences made by writers being formal, clause follows clause, the sentence is compound as well as complex, and absolutes, participles, and appositives combine with prepositional phrases – a combination of combinations that includes, balances, and ultimately unifies.”
October 29, 2007
Hall has solid credentials as a writer, though I've never read anything of his but this text. I found it to be much better than the standard issue english composition textbook and as useful, actually more useful, than Strunk and White.
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December 30, 2010Donald Hall sent me his copy...with stern advice on writing.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews