Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
robinwieruch.de
Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
1–10 of 72 posts
Re: Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
#2This is my favourite book about writing. It's not only filled with insight but itself serves as a perfect example of what the author is recommending you do.
Re: Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
#3I was so disappointed with this book. Some of the platitudes Zinsser goes into are reasonable, like try to be uncluttered, direct and to the point, but all the worked examples seem to just be arbitrarily chosen to his taste. For example, in the chapter on "clutter", Zinsser picks out this passage from Walden as his exemplar of "uncluttered English":
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
Dense, incredibly difficult to parse, with a non-standard use of "front" as a verb and what seems to be a triple-negative. If I said that sentence to you, out loud, I doubt you would catch the meaning of it on the first pass. The book is filled with stuff like that.
That said, I really do want to get better at non-fiction writing, specifically technical writing, but I haven't found any good recommendations for "canonical" books on technical writing. If anyone can suggest a decent, pragmatic (as opposed to Strunk-and-White style prescriptivism) introduction to technical writing specifically, I'd appreciate it.
Re: Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
#4I was so disappointed with this book. Some of the platitudes Zinsser goes into are reasonable, like try to be uncluttered, direct and to the point, but all the worked examples seem to just be arbitrarily chosen to his taste. For example, in the chapter on "clutter", Zinsser picks out this passage from Walden as his exemplar of "uncluttered English": "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front…
I enjoyed (the first 2/3 of) Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style. It includes examples of where prescriptivism fails and succeeds.
Re: Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
#5I was so disappointed with this book. Some of the platitudes Zinsser goes into are reasonable, like try to be uncluttered, direct and to the point, but all the worked examples seem to just be arbitrarily chosen to his taste. For example, in the chapter on "clutter", Zinsser picks out this passage from Walden as his exemplar of "uncluttered English": "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front…
I think http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/02/20/writing-advice/ is not really what you're looking for but is on the same continent.
Re: Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
#6> Imagine you start to write about a topic. Start to think small. “Decide on the corner of the subject you want to bite off.” Cover that corner well, be satisfied by that and stop. Make it a complete experience for your reader. Don’t nibble on another corner of the subject and leave the reader with an incomplete reading experience.
Huh? Shouldn't you provide a birds-eye view of the topic first? Answer questions such as: why should the reader be interested in the topic in the first place, and quickly scan over the relevant issues, make it clear what issue you are going to discuss next, and why.
Re: Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
#7I've read "On Writing Well". I then discovered "Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace" by Joseph Williams. "Style" is better than "On Writing Well". "On Writing Well" opened my eyes to what bad writing is, while "Style" explained how to write clearly. He took an impossible topic - writing clearly, showing you the elements of clear, consistent and impactful writing, distilling down into actionable lessons. The advice is not vague like "Use the active voice", "Don't start sentences with And"; he shows you why with examples. Even the passive voice is more suitable in certain cases. After reading the book, it changed the way I read and write. Very few books change the way you think. "Style" is one of them.
Re: Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
#8I was so disappointed with this book. Some of the platitudes Zinsser goes into are reasonable, like try to be uncluttered, direct and to the point, but all the worked examples seem to just be arbitrarily chosen to his taste. For example, in the chapter on "clutter", Zinsser picks out this passage from Walden as his exemplar of "uncluttered English": "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front…
>, with a non-standard use of "front" as a verb
Fyi... it was an old style of speaking relevant to Thoreau's time. "Front" was another way of saying "confront". It's wasn't an example of "verbing" a noun in a nonstandard way.[1]
Re: Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
#9Amazing book.
Out of the 250+ books I have notes on, this is in my top 10.
Here are some excerpts from it:
Re: Lessons Learned from “On Writing Well”
#10I was so disappointed with this book. Some of the platitudes Zinsser goes into are reasonable, like try to be uncluttered, direct and to the point, but all the worked examples seem to just be arbitrarily chosen to his taste. For example, in the chapter on "clutter", Zinsser picks out this passage from Walden as his exemplar of "uncluttered English": "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front…
> That said, I really do want to get better at non-fiction writing, specifically technical writing, but I haven't found any good recommendations for "canonical" books on technical writing. If anyone can suggest a decent, pragmatic (as opposed to Strunk-and-White style prescriptivism) introduction to technical writing specifically, I'd appreciate it.
Not a book, but this essay[0] by George Orwell has a number of great tips.
[0] http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit