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Rewriting is the essence of writing well - where the game is won or lost.

William Zinsser

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William Zinsser
Age: 92 †
Born: 1922
Born: October 7
Died: 2015
Died: May 12
Journalist
Literary Critic
Writer
New York City
New York
William Knowlton Zinsser
Wells
Well
Writing
Rewriting
Essence
Game
Games
Lost

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Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.
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Good writers are visible just behind their words.
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Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes.
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People and places are the twin pillars on which most nonfiction is built. Every human event happens somewhere, and the reader wants to know what that somewhere was like.
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Every successful piece of nonfiction should leave the reader with one provocative thought that he or she didn't have before. Not two thoughts, or five - just one. So decide what single point you want to leave in the reader's mind.
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A writer is always working.
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I have no interest in teaching writers how to sell. I want to teach them how to write. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself, and sales are likely to follow.
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Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it's where the game is won or lost. The idea is hard to accept. We all have emotional equity in our first draft we can't believe that it wasn't born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn't.
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Writing is linear and sequential Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn't the writing it's the thinking. You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: What does the reader need to know next?
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Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.
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Writing is such lonely work that I try to keep myself cheered up. If something strikes me as funny in the act of writing, I throw it in just to amuse myself. If I think it's funny I assume a few other people will find it funny, and that seems to me to be a good day's work.
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Writing is thinking on paper. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly-about any subject at all.
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Even a poor translator couldn't kill a style that moves with such narrative clarity.
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All writers should strive to deliver something fresh-something editors or readers won't know they want until they see it.
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To write a good memoir you must become the editor of your own life, imposing on an untidy sprawl of half-remembered events a narrative shape and an organizing idea. Memoir is the art of inventing the truth.
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Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.
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Today the outlandish becomes routine overnight. The humorist is trying to say that it's still outlandish.
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Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe.
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There's no subject you don't have permission to write about. Students often avoid subjects close to their heart ... because they assume that their teachers will regard those topics as 'stupid.' No area of life is stupid to someone who takes it seriously. If you follow your affections you will write well and will engage your readers.
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The game is won or lost on hundreds of small details.
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