Bibliography

[the_lady_lily]

On Writing Well - William Zinsser

Now this is more like it. This does what I kind of wanted Revising Prose to do, except without the polemic. The foundational principles are the same, but the attitude is totally different, and as such is far more convincing. You want to write like Zinsser, because he's so darn readable.

There are basically five key ideas I've taken out of this - clarity, simplicity, brevity, humanity and unity. They're pretty self-explanatory. Clarity is, obviously, saying what you want to say and not getting caught up in jargon and falling over your own feet. Simplicity dovetails with that, not to mention the basic rule of don't use the verb utilize when use will do. Plus not verbing nouns or nouning verbs. Brevity - again, not falling over own feet or repeating ideas. Humanity is about keeping your own voice in the piece and also keeping people rather than abstract concepts in your writing as well - hence why you should banish the passive voice whenever you can. Unity is pretty wide-ranging, from making sure you've kept the same tone throughout the piece to checking your tenses are consistent. So those are my Big Lessons and things to look for when revising prose and doing my best to write well.

The book overall, I should note, isn't aimed at academics. After some general chapters setting out principles applicable to any non-fiction writing, Zinsser devotes chapters to specific non-fiction genres. For instance, he talks about particularly relevant things to bear in mind when writing travel pieces, memoirs, sports reporting and so forth. A lot of the same ideas keep on repeating, so even though I doubt I'll ever write a piece on baseball, reading how to apply the same ideas in a different genre helped get them set in my head. It was even interesting to read, heaven help me.

So! Don't bother with Revising Prose; go straight to this. It's readable, it has a good attitude, and there are no bloody formulae to follow which will somehow create amazing prose. Zinsser also appreciates the nuances of the English language, and for that I thank him.

Comments

[kataplexis.livejournal.com]

How does one who works on abstract concepts replace them with people? I am worried i I should move to great man history from begriffesgechichte.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

I think it is the bit where you make sure you write 'the Athenians conceived justice as...' rather than 'justice was conceived as...' That was certainly what I took from it, anyway.

[kataplexis.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. I can do that.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how often my first drafts don't. It's a good thing to be reminded to look for, at least for me.

[kataplexis.livejournal.com]

It isn't surprising, though. The first word tend to be what the mind is focused on. When I am writing about justice, justice is often the first word I type in a sentence.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

Zinsser also makes the point that writing good prose involves a hell of a lot of revision. So it's less about getting it right first time, and more about getting it right once you've revised the hell out of the passage in question. Which fits neatly with my experience of writing the thesis...

[kataplexis.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Nothing leaves my hands without at least 5-6 revisions and usually gets 2-3 at poldy's hands too.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

That's the first time I've seen a legitimate argument for avoiding the passive voice, rather than the usual 'oh it's a bit confusing'. Of course, this argument falls down if the subject of one's passive construction is a person rather than an abstract concept, e.g. why should one automatically prefer 'the Spartans attacked the Athenians' over 'the Athenians were attacked by the Spartans'. And I do think that to banish the passive voice altogether is to lose something from the richness of the language.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

Zinsser, thankfully, doesn't argue for the abolition of the passive voice in toto. He just points out that it's one of the stylistic tics that can make otherwise good writing stodgy and difficult to read. I feel that's completely fair comment, given how often I read something in the passive voice and think it's completely unnecessary.

[kataplexis.livejournal.com]

Its all about variatio. Really, lily, you should just read Demetrius.