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

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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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Be grateful for every word you can cut.
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Writing is a craft not an art.
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Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.
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You'll never make your mark as a writer unless you develop a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning that is almost obsessive. The English language is rich in strong and supple words. Take the time to root around and find the ones you want
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Don't try to guess what sort of thing editors want to publish or what you think the country is in a mood to read. Editors and readers don't know what they want to read until they read it. Besides, they're always looking for something new.
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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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Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.
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I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.
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A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.
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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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Be yourself and your readers will follow you anywhere. Try to commit an act of writing and they will jump overboard to get away.
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The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn't induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn't induce him to continue to the third sentence, it's equally dead.
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Although the frankfurter originated in Frankfurt, Germany, we have long since made it our own, a twin pillar of democracy along with Mom's apple pie. In fact, now that Mom's apple pie comes frozen and baked by somebody who isn't Mom, the hot dog stands alone. What it symbolizes remains pure, even if what it contains does not.
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Every time you look at a blank piece of paper, you're doing something new. You have to step onto that blank territory and remind yourself the sky didn't fall in the last time you wrote. Writing is a question of overcoming your fears-and everybody has them.
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Never let anything go out into the world that you don't understand.
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No one has something original or important to say will willing we run the risk of being misunderstood people who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief
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