notes on The Transaction

A short chapter on the transaction between reader and writing. Zinsser starts with a recollection of a talk he participated in about the writing process. He establishes that all writers are different,

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.

Later, he states the goal of the book – to convey the principles of good writing – and finishes strongly.

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.

notes on Bits & Pieces

A very big chapter of scraps and morsels; many different points on various topics that Zinsser gathered in one.

On verbs

Use active verbs unless there is no comfortable way to get around using a passive verb. Joe saw him is strong. He was seen by Joe is weak.

I use perpetrated because it is the kind of word that passive-voice writers are fond of. They prefer long words of Latin origin to short Anglo-Saxon words – which compounds their trouble and makes their sentences still more glutinous.

A marvelous passage:

Many verbs also carry in their imagery or in their sound a suggestion of what they mean: glitter, dazzle, twirl, beguile, scatter, swagger, poke, pamper, vex. Probably no other language has such a vast supply of verbs so bright with color. Don't choose one that is dull or merely serviceable.

If you want to see how active verbs give vitality to the written word, don't just go back to Hemingway or Thurber or Thoreau. I commend the King James Bible and William Shakespeare.

On adverbs and adjectives

In short, don't use them when it's application is redundant.

Little quantifiers

This section in particular made me very self-aware of my own writing. I quote:

Prune out the small words that qualify how you feel and how you think and what you saw: 'a bit', 'a little', 'sort of', 'kind of', 'rather', 'quite', 'very', 'too', 'pretty much', 'in a sense', and dozens more. They dilute your style and your persuasiveness.

Don't say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.

On punctuation

Some notes on the exclamation point, the period, the comma, the semicolon, etc.

Among good writers it is the short sentence that predominates, and don't tell me about Normal Mailer – he's a genius. If you want to write long sentences, be a genius.

Mood changers

Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with but. If that's what you learned, unlearn it – there is no stronger word at the start. It announces total contrast with what has gone before, and the reader is thereby primed for the change. If you need relief from too many sentences beginning with but, switch to however. It is, however, a weaker word and needs careful placement. Don't start a sentence with however – it hangs there like a wet dishrag. And don't end with however – by that time it has lost its howeverness. Put it as early as you reasonably can, as I did three sentences ago. Its abruptness then becomes a virtue.

notes on Simplicity

The airline pilot who announces that the is presently anticipating experiencing considerable precipitation wouldn't think of saying it may rain. The sentence is too simple – there must be something wrong with it.

The chapter focuses on the idea of simplicity in writing: striving for clarity in thoughts and style. There are many ways for a text to be unsimple:

Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that's already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what – these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.

And then, a quote that provided some peace of mind regarding my own process of exhaustively reorder and rework any given sentence I am stuck with:

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 is moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard.

notes on Clutter

Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds.

The sentence above starts the chapter on clutter, and I found it particularly striking given the environment I am, at the time of writing, currently set in.

Consider what President Nixon's aide John Dean accomplished in just one day of testimony on television during the Watergate hearings. The next day everyone in America was saying 'at this point in time' instead of 'now'. (...) Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.

Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Reexamine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? Is anything pompous or pretentious or faddish?

notes on Style

Zinsser is highly aware that going for simple and decluttered writing can give the impression of lack of personality or uniqueness: possibly a lack of style.

Few people realize how badly they write. Nobody has shown them how much excess or murkiness has crept into their style and how it obstructs what they are trying to say. If you give me an eight-page article and I tell you to cut it to four pages, you-ll howl and say it can-t be done. Then you'll go home and do it, and it will be much better. After that comes the hard part: cutting it to three.

Therefore I urge people to write in the first person: to use 'I' and 'me' and 'we' and 'us'. They put up a fight.

Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.

notes on Audience

You are writing primarily to please yourself, and if you go about it with enjoyment you will also entertain the readers who are worth writing for. If you lose the dullards back in the dust, you don't want them anyway.

Zinsser is now trying to solve the issue of having an audience. This chapter, among with the previous too, are a bit muddy in their intentions.

First, work hard to master the tools. Simplify, prune and strive for order. Think of this as a mechanical act, and soon your sentences will become cleaner.

He follows by extensively quoting more authors – E.B. White writing on hens, H. L. Mencken about the Monkey Trial, and James Herndon on his experiences in teaching. The quotes are highly enjoyable; maybe these are authors to read further on.

notes on Words

Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what was written by earlier masters. Writing is learned by imitation. If anyone asked me how I learned to write, I’d say I learned by reading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and trying to figure out how they did it.

This is a very poignant chapter on the importance of choosing the words wisely, and according to the needs of the idea which is being conveyed; it is also one where William's flair is most evident. After a passage in which he displayed a strong command for related words to villain, he states that

Such considerations of sound and rhythm should go into everything you write. If all your sentences move at the same plodding gait, which even you recognize as deadly but don't know how to cure, read them aloud. (I write entirely by ear and read everything aloud before letting it go out into the world.) You'll begin to hear where the trouble lies. See if you can gain variety by reversing the order of a sentence, or by substituting a word that has freshness or oddity, or by altering the length of your sentences so they don't all sound as if they came out of the same machine. An occasional short sentence can carry a tremendous punch. It stays in the reader's ear.

The passage below motivated me to get a Slovene dictionary, and pay more attention to the roots of words; I wonder if it could be interesting to learn Latin.

If you have any doubt of what a word means, look it up. Learn its etymology and notice what curious branches its original root has put forth. See if it has any meanings you didn’t know it had. Master the small gradations between words that seem to be synonyms.

notes on Usage

Along with the previous chapter, this is also very interesting: it follows the same vein as the one uncovered by a word's etymology. This time, Zinsser is concerned about appropriate usage of a word. He recalls his experience as a member of a Usage Panel for The American Heritage Dictionary.

Would I accept finalize and escalate? How did I feel about It's me? Would I allow like to be used as a conjunction – like so many people do? How about mighty, as in mighty fine?

It is a delicious chapter about language and its many contextual uses.

The growing acceptance of the split infinitive, or of the preposition at the end of a sentence, proves that formal syntax can’t hold the fort forever against a speaker’s more comfortable way of getting the same thing said—and it shouldn’t. I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.

We rejected “too” as a synonym for “very,” as in “His health is not too good.” Whose health is? But we approved it in sardonic or humorous use, as in “He was not too happy when she ignored him.

notes on Unity

A small chapter on the concept of unity. There are arguments against trying to hold many topics at once in a given text.

Therefore ask yourself some basic questions before you start. For example: in what capacity am I doing to address the reader? (Reporter? Provider of information? Average man or woman?) What pronoun and tense am I going to use? What style? (Impersonal reportorial? Personal but formal? Personal and casual?) What attitude am I going to take toward the material? (Involved? Detached? Judgemental? Ironic? Amused?) How much do I want to cover? What one point do I want to make?

Therefore think small. Decide what corner of your subject you’re going to bite off, and be content to cover it well and stop. This is also a matter of energy and morale. <<<

As for what point you want to make, every successful piece of nonfiction should leave the reader with one provocative thought that he or she didn't have before. Not two thoughts, or five – just one.

notes on The Lead and the Ending

The lead and the ending are tools geared toward journalistic writing, but could still be applicable in other forms of essayism. They are very effective tools to engage readers.

Zinsser quotes his own writing on Life and Look magazines. As a sidestepping into a point he was making about having more than enough material for any given piece of writing,

Every article is strong in proportion to the surplus of details from which you can choose the few that will serve you best – if you don't go on gathering facts forever.

cited authors:

I'll admit that certain nonfiction writers, like Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer, have built some remarkable houses.

E.B. White writing on hens, H. L. Mencken about the Monkey Trial, and James Herndon on his experiences in teaching.