Book Review: William Zinsser's On Writing Well

I’ve tried to write this review a few times now and I think that the problem is that On Writing Well so thoroughly covers vast territory that it’s impossible to write anything that does the book justice. On Writing Well is William Zinsser’s opus after a lifetime of teaching and writing. All of my thoughts end up looking like introductory paragraphs and don’t really follow one another. I’m not giving up, but I’d rather just write this post and have done with it for the time being and come back to On Writing Well some other time.

#

I participated in ten writing workshops as an undergraduate and now have read a few books on the craft of writing. Every teacher and writer seems compelled, whether anyone asks or not, to answer the question, “Can writing be taught?” The reply is almost always some variant on, “No… but there’s a lot that can be learned.”

What I appreciate about On Writing Well is that Zinsser makes no apology. This is a book about craft and if you’re reading it you’re probably of the opinion that reading a thesis on writing as a learned skill will help you become a better writer. I have more Thoughts and Opinions on this subject, but I’ll leave that for another post.

#

What is immediately obvious about Zinsser, even after reading the first page or two, is that he is a phenomenal writer and teacher. I read a copy of the fourth edition, which I believe is the last, and his introduction is as cogent and thoughtful as the rest of the book. He explains that On Writing Well is a collection of essays dealing with subjects and themes he taught as a professor of nonfiction writing. With each later edition, he added more essays on innovations and changes he saw in the field of professional writing. Primarily, he used later editions to update the reading recommendations so that they were still relevant and to alter the text of the original to be less sexist. On Writing Well was first written in 1976 and so he often referred to the Reader and Writer with male pronouns. In subsequent revisions, Zinsser removed much of the presuming language as possible and in a later chapter discusses sexism in expository writing in depth.

Another major alteration was a chapter on the Word Processor. As a bibliophile and writing geek I thought this chapter was like an archeological treasure. I have never been compelled to use a typewriter and so I can’t empathize with his description of the former “slave labor” of writing. The work of writing, Zinsser explains, was revolutionized with the word processor. The chapter on the word processor is long and thoughtful, but basically Zinsser argues that now technology has given writers the greatest gift ever: the ability to endlessly and freely revise.

Zinsser’s favorite catchphrase is, “The essence of writing is revision.”  Writing is work and a craft and the only way a writer can really achieve a fine product is through careful, thoughtful revision. All writers and teachers eventually make the same point, but I think Zinsser’s lesson is a little more noble, that writing is work worth the payoff. This could just be my puritan-American sensibilities giving me a bias, but I think that his emphasizing the act and labor of writing legitimizes the profession.

#

In the chapter on business writing, Zinsser talks about a workshop he led with a group of school administrators. Their writing was muddled because it was too abstract, filled with sweeping passive and entirely conceptual statements. They were writing newsletters to parents that were filled with jargon and catchphrases that didn’t mean anything. He didn’t bother with a drawn out lesson how to use a comma and instead gave this simple instruction: find the humanity in your writing and use the first and second person as often as you can.

In my first nonfiction class, my teacher told us on the first day, “Use ‘I’ a lot. For some reason people are always afraid to say ‘I’ and so I want to be perfectly clear that you have permission to use the first person.” Her point was essentially the same as Zinsser’s, that abstract writing is eerie because no person is doing anything. We all crave a human connection.

One of Zinsser’s central points is that good writing has great humanity. Good writing is the effort of the writer to convey his or her particular point of view to another person. It’s about sharing and generosity.

Last August I had the pleasure of seeing Ibtisam Barakat give a lecture at the University of Iowa on teaching writing. She is a Palestinian woman who moved to America as a young woman. She says that her whole life has been spent, literally and figuratively, in exile. Then she said that she believes, “Most human beings are in exile.” We are in exile from one another, and by being an individual, living is essentially lonely. Writing, she says, is the attempt to fight against loneliness for your own sake and for benefit of your fellow human beings. I like that sentiment, and I think that Zinsser would agree with her.

#

There isn’t much about On Writing Well that I don’t like. Even his lamentation about the degeneration of writing was interesting because he makes such an eloquent argument. I distrust any talk about the “good old days” followed by “kids these days.” But Zinsser argues that there is a tendency in education to teach that certain subjects are appropriate and others are inappropriate subjects for an essay. The result is that people feel they must write what someone else (a teacher, an editor, a critic) wants.

His point is that you should write what you love, which is a lesson I’ve seen in many books on writing, but I think it’s interesting how he frames the problem with Audience. It’s not enough to just write what you want, you have to write without consideration for what someone else will think. Of course he’s not excusing bad writing, he’s just advocating self-confidence.

#

While I read this book I sent my dad an email asking him if he’d ever read On Writing Well because one of Zinsser’s mantra’s is that good writing is clear and concise. When I wrote essays in high school, my dad would proof read them and, more often than not, he’d circle a sentence or a paragraph and ask, “What are you trying to say here?” I’d tell him my point and then he’d say, “Good. Now write that.”

Writing clearly and concisely is a never-ending battle. Even though my dad gave me my first lesson on the aesthetic and utility of clean prose with as few frills as possible, I still appreciate Zinsser’s thoughts and tricks. Don’t be arrogant. Don’t try to show off. Just say what you mean to say and get out as soon as possible.

#

I could – and probably should – write much more about On Writing Well, but everything I write feels inadequate by comparison. If you believe, as I do, that good writing can be taught and learned, I think you will get a lot out of this book. Someday, if I’m ever permitted to teach a class on writing, I know that I will reference On Writing Well liberally.

In the meantime, I’m putting this one on the shelf. I know that I will come back to it soon.

Book Review: Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird

Though I just finished reading Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life I have heard about it and been assigned excerpts from it in several of my writing classes.  I think it is everyone's favorite book on writing, even if they disagree with it.  After reading the first two pages, I decided that I didn't care whether or not I learned a damn thing from Lamott about writing; it was just fun to read and that was good enough for me.

In that respect, Bird by Bird is a wonderful and refreshing contrast to King's On Writing.  It's a charming, hilarious, wonderful book and I would recommend it to anyone.  I think that the LA Times review did it the most justice by describing Bird by Bird as "warm" and "generous."  In the end, I do think that I learned more about life from Lamott than I did about the craft.  This is probably why intro to creative writing teachers assign this book all the time.  Freshman writers need about as much advice on art as they do on any other aspect of their lives, so Lamott is a good and thoughtful catch-all.

Anyway, enough generalizations.  Onto the meat of the review.  ... And here is where I run into problems.  Bird by Bird is, for lack of a better term, a bit scatter-brained.  This isn't a criticism, because it really works here for a variety of reasons.  It just makes a sum-up difficult.  Lamott breaks the book down into chapters, but those chapters are generally brief, capricious essays on themes more than in-depth discussions on aspects of the craft.  It's a peculiar book, but that's not a bad thing.

Part of the reason this meandering style works is because Lamott is a master of the illustrative anecdote.  Throughout the whole book there are seamless transitions from the frame of Lamott's writing seminars, to stories from her life, to discussions on method and art.  Reading Bird by Bird is kind of like being led around the playground by a three year-old in the grips of a sugar rush.

Where Lamott excels, though, and I've noticed this in her other writing, too, is in her visceral descriptions of paranoid rumination and malcontent, vicious cycles.  Reading Lamott is very cathartic.  I thought I was the only person who felt a whirlwind of gratitude, hatred, self-loathing, and inspiration following a crit group.  This is probably the real Reason why everyone Loves this book.  It speaks to our darkest, most chaotic feelings as sensitive individuals, absolves us for it, and then tells us to move on.

I want to hug this woman.

Frankly, I thought that this would be a very easy review to write, but I'm struggling.  So, I'm going back to Lamott's very early piece of advice on writing: small assignments.  What I really want to talk about, what fascinates me about the book, is Lamott's philosophy on writing.  She has a lot to say about the craft, style, publication, jealousy, libel, assignments, and a plenitude of of other topics -- in fact, she has a book's worth of things to say -- but her Introduction is what sticks with me.

She begins with the frame of her own life as a teacher and writer and says that a question she's frequently asked in interviews is, "Why do you write?"  Her standard reply is to quote John Ashbery and Flannery O'Conner, "Because I want to and because I'm good at it."  but she goes on to describe her students' motivations to get published and become famous and she says that she tries to help everyone come to see that writing, creating, engaging with the world as an artist is a miraculous, beautiful compulsion.

Why write?  Because we all deserve and need to share our own particular experience.  That is what I love about Lamott's philosophy and where I agree with her completely.  The book is saturated with raw enthusiasm.  Lamott wrote this book for You, individually, so that You would have the courage to tell your own story and see that as a right, not a privilege.  Or Lamott is far better at duping me than I'd care to admit.

Something else that Lamott mentions in the following chapter about reasons to write struck me as, if not unique, then at least an unusual defense.  She says that the greatest reason to write is, essentially, for the love of books.  "... Books are as important as anything else on earth.  What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you.... My gratitude for good writing is unbounded; I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean.  Aren't you?"

This is why Bird by Bird is fantastic.  Because it is an altruistic message that encourages the reader to be grateful and generous.  Right now, I'm going through a challenging transition in my life.  I owe my mental stability to friends, family, A, caffeine, liquor, and books.  Lamott and George R.R. Martin are helping me get through this.  As a result, I want to read and write more.  It seems like the least I can do.