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

[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.