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

Nobody turns so quickly into a bore as a traveler home from his travels. He enjoyed his trip so much that he wants to tell us all about it—and “all” is what we don’t want to hear. We only want to hear some. What made his trip different from everybody else’s?

you should always collect more material than you will use.

The clear writer is someone clearheaded enough to see this stuff for what it is: fuzz.

As for what point you want to make, every successful piece of nonfiction should leave the reader with one provocative thought that he or she didn’t have before.

The perfect ending should take your readers slightly by surprise and yet seem exactly right. They didn’t expect the article to end so soon, or so abruptly, or to say what it said. But they know it when they see it. Like a good lead, it works.

Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say? Surprisingly often they don’t know.

Therefore learn how to conduct an interview. Whatever form of nonfiction you write, it will come alive in proportion to the number of “quotes” you can weave into it as you go along.

Readers want the person who is talking to them to sound genuine. Therefore a fundamental rule is: be yourself.

humanity. I explained about using active verbs and avoiding “concept nouns.” I told them not to use the special vocabulary of education as a crutch; almost any subject can be made accessible in good English.