On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

by William Zinsser

I’m more interested in the intangibles that produce good writing—confidence, enjoyment, intention, integrity—and I’ve written new chapters on those values.

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

It’s a question of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest clarity and strength.

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.

But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.

The

man or woman snoozing in a chair with a magazine or a book is a person who was being given too much unnecessary trouble by the writer.

Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say?

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you

find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.