Do you know how to write? I asked myself this before buying the book. I didn’t know the answer. My writing experience through college was that the professors assumed that I knew how to write, assigned a paper, and then graded it with no feedback. I wrote a lot but didn’t learn a lot about writing. Since college, I had started writing again. I had picked up a few tips here and there from reading books and blogs. I felt like I knew what I was doing.
Then my friend recommended me this book. It made me question what it means to write well. I knew what I thought writing well meant, but I didn’t know what successful authors thought it meant. That ignorance made me decide to buy the book.
Reading this book was a journey — it started out great, then dragged on and became unbearable, and then ended on a high note with the most useful information.
The beginning either taught me keys to writing well or reinforced ones that I already knew: write with confidence; speak from the first person; tell your story; use a unique perspective; and use peculiar phrases to keep the reader attentive.
Then came the descent. Zinsser is a great writer, but not the best teacher. I wasn’t sure I took away all the key points. Each chapter covers a different subject, with a lot of points scattered throughout the paragraphs. I’m not sure I picked up on everything he writes about. It would have been easier if he ended each chapter with bullet points of the key takeaways, or ended it with questions that ask the reader if they understood the key points.
Then Part 3 put me to sleep. Part 3 is about writing about different subjects. The problem again is how the material is presented. Each chapter is about a different subject. In each of them are many passages from other writers that he uses as examples to analyze. He often quotes a passage, spends a paragraph or two analyzing it, and then jumps straight to the next passage with no clear delineation. I found myself drifting off for a page or two and then realizing I didn’t know what I was reading. I had to go back and re-read often. If he had made clear breaks, like starting each passage on the next page, giving each passage a header, or some other visual break, it would have been much easier.
Not only was Part 3 hard to follow, he didn’t always appear to be an expert on the subject he was talking about. I don’t consider myself a funny person, but I learned nothing about humor from reading his chapter on the subject. He states that he has taught classes on humor writing — suggesting he has expert insights — but he only provides common knowledge: don’t explain jokes, and don’t repeat them.
But suffering through Part 3 was worth it. Part 4 contains the most valuable information in the book. He breaks down one of his own articles piece by piece and offers his thought process on writing. I got a lot out of it. He gives a lot of useful tips: think what the reader wants to know next after each sentence; the last sentence of each paragraph should springboard to the next paragraph; know when to end an article; and have a strong ending.
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