On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

I once interviewed Chic Young, creator of Blondie, when he had been writing and drawing that daily and Sunday comic strip for 40 years, or 14,500 strips. It was the most popular of all strips, reaching 60 million readers in every corner of the world, and I asked Young why it was so durable. “It’s durable because it’s simple,” he said. “It’s built o

The columns that I wrote for Life made people laugh. But they had a serious purpose, which was to say: “Something crazy is going on here—some erosion in the quality of life, or some threat to life itself, and yet everyone assumes it’s normal.” Today the outlandish becomes routine overnight. The humorist is trying to say that it’s still outlandish.

That was what I needed. I invented a magazine called Haircurl and wrote a series of parody letters and replies. The piece ran in Life and it began like this: Dear Haircurl: I am 15 and am considered pretty in my group. I wear baby pink rollers, jumbo size. I have been going steady with a certain boy for 2½ years and he has never seen me without my

Humor is the secret weapon of the nonfiction writer. It’s secret because so few writers realize that humor is often their best tool—and sometimes their only tool—for making an important point.

they consist of personal opinion. Even the editorial that uses “we” was obviously written by an “I.” What is crucial for you as the writer is to express your opinion firmly. Don’t cancel its strength with last-minute evasions and escapes. The most boring sentence in the daily newspaper is the last sentence of the editorial, which says “It is too ea

Therefore if you want to be a critic, steep yourself in the literature of the medium you hope to make your specialty. If you want to be a theater critic, see every possible play—the good and the bad, the old and the new. Catch up on the past by reading the classics or seeing them in revival. Know your Shakespeare and Shaw, your Chekhov and Molière,

third principle is to use specific detail. This avoids dealing in generalities, which, being generalities, mean nothing. “The play is always fascinating” is a typical critic’s sentence. But how is it fascinating? Your idea of fascinating is different from someone else’s. Cite a few examples and let your readers weigh them on their own fascination s

Yet I suggest several conditions that apply to both good reviewing and good criticism. One is that critics should like—or, better still, love—the medium they are reviewing. If you think movies are dumb, don’t write about them. The reader deserves a movie buff who will bring along a reservoir of knowledge, passion and prejudice. It’s not necessary f

If you work for an institution, whatever your job, whatever your level, be yourself when you write. You will stand out as a real person among the robots, and your example might even persuade Thomas Bell to write his own stuff.