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

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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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If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.
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A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.
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Writing is thinking on paper.
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To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.
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Nobody told all the new e-mail writers that the essence of writing is rewriting. Just because they are writing with ease and enjoyment doesn't mean they are writing well.
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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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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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There are all kinds of writers and all kinds of methods, and any method that helps you to say what you want to say is the right method for you.
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The sound of the bat is the music of spring training.
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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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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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It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon launder became a dirty word.
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