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What remains? Most of the sentence, and of course the crucial dash, which is the sveltest emblem possible of the license afforded to the sick, to the essayist, and to the sentence itself. “On Being Ill” contains one of Woolf’s boldest essayistic deviations
Literary Hub • On a Wonderful, Beautiful, Almost Failed Sentence By Virginia Woolf
The second suggestion Vonnegut makes in “How to Write with Style” is “Do not ramble.” I won’t, as he said he wouldn’t, “ramble on about that.” The third is “Keep it simple.”
Kurt Vonnegut • Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style
Examine every word you put on paper. You’ll find a surprising number that don’t serve any purpose.
William Zinsser • On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction
Lift out the top layer of your toolbox—your vocabulary and all the grammar stuff. On the layer beneath go those elements of style upon which I’ve already touched. Strunk and White offer the best tools (and the best rules) you could hope for, describing them simply and clearly.
Stephen King • On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (A Memoir of the Craft (Reissue))
Most first drafts can be cut by 50 percent without losing any information or losing the author’s voice.
William Zinsser • On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction
My reason for bracketing the students’ superfluous words, instead of crossing them out, was to avoid violating their sacred prose. I wanted to leave the sentence intact for them to analyze. I was saying, “I may be wrong, but I think this can be deleted and the meaning won’t be affected. But you decide. Read the sentence without the bracketed materi
... See moreWilliam Zinsser • On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction
The number of the subject determines the number of the verb.
William Strunk JR. and E.B. White • The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition
