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One of underestimated tasks in nonfiction writing is to impose narrative shape on an unwieldy mass of material.

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
Writing
Impose
Narrative
Shape
Tasks
Material
Shapes
Unwieldy
Materials
Underestimated
Mass
Nonfiction

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My four articles of faith: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.
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A writer is obviously at his most natural and relaxed when he writes in the first person. Writing is a personal transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and the transaction will go well to the extent that it retains its humanity.
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Eloquence invites us to bring some part of ourselves to the transaction.
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Writing is not a special language that belongs to a few sensitive souls who have a 'gift for words'. Writing is the logical arrangement of thought. Anyone who thinks clearly should be able to write clearly---about any subject at all.
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Writing is thinking on paper.
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Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is.
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Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do
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Dare to tell the smallest of stories if you want to generate large emotions.
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Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation.
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Probably every subject is interesting if an avenue into it can be found that has humanity and that an ordinary person can follow.
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Thought is action in rehearsal.
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Writing organizes and clarifies our thoughts. Writing is how we think our way into a subject and make it our own. Writing enables us to find out what we know-and what we don't know-about whatever we're trying to learn.
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Telling a writer to relax is like telling a man to relax while being prodded for a possible hernia.
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Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with but. If that's what you learned, unlearn it - there's no stronger word at the start. It announces a total contrast with what has gone before, and the reader is thereby primed for the change.
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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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A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.
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Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.
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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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Writing improves in direct ratio to the things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there.
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