5. You Write for Yourself

1. The fundamental question in writing is "Who am I writing for"? And its fundamental answer is "You are writing for yourself."
2. "Editors and readers don't know what they want to read until they read it. Besides, they're always looking for something new."
3. If a sudden impulse of humor amuses the writer, he can put it in his writing with no worry whether the reader will get it.
4. First master a precise skill of writing (craft), then, use that skill to express your personality (attitude).
5. Do not lose the reader and still be carefree about his opinion. But how? Here is a solution:

• "First, work hard to master the tools. Simplify, prune and strive for order. This is a mechanical act, soon sentences will become cleaner." At least sentences will be grounded in solid principles, and chances of losing the reader will be smaller.
• Expressing who you are is a creative act. "Relax and say what you want to say. And since style is who you are, you only need to be true to yourself to find it gradually emerging from under the accumulated clutter and debris, growing more distinctive every day. Perhaps the style won't solidify for years as your style, your voice. Just as it takes time to find yourself as a person, it takes time to find yourself as a stylist, and even then, your style will change as you grow older.

These are my summary notes on 'The Audience' from a book "On Writing Well" written by William Zinsser.

 

4. Style is Organic to the Person Doing the Writing

1. The writer should bring writing on the level of carpentry. Then, the issue of writer's identity comes.
2. The writer has to strip his/her writing down before he/she can build it back up.
3. One must know what the essential tools are and what job they were designed to do.
4. Never forget that practicing a craft is based on certain principles.
5. Like weak nails make house weak, weak verbs make syntax rickety and sentences fall apart.
6. Nobody becomes a well-crafted writer overnight, not even the famous writer her/himself.
7. "There is no style store; style is organic to the person doing the writing, as much a part of him as his hair, or, if he is bald, his lack of it."
8. "Readers want the person who is talking to them to sound genuine. Therefore, a fundamental rule is: be yourself."
9. To follow rule, writer must relax, and must have confidence.
10. A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing.
11. Writer feels he is in misery. But there is no cure to put him out of these miseries. "Some days will go better than others."
12. "Writers are obviously at their most natural when they write in the first person."
13. "Writing is an intimate transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and it will go well to the extent that it retains its humanity. Therefore, I urge people to write in the first person: to use "I" and "me" and "we" and "us."
14. Writers argue that nobody cares about their opinions. But people or readers will care if the writer tells them something interesting.
15. Vast regions of writing (such as academic world, news stories in newspapers, articles in magazines, businesses and institutions reports, colleges, term papers or dissertations) do not allow any first-person pronoun. "Many of those prohibitions are valid."
16. "If you aren't allowed to use "I," at least think "I" while you write, or write the first draft in the first person and then take the "I"s out. It will warm up your impersonal style."
17. "Leaders who bob and weave like aging boxers don't inspire confidence—or deserve it. The same thing is true of writers. Sell yourself, and your subject will exert its own appeal."
18. "Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going."
19. These are my summary notes on 'Style' from a book "On Writing Well" written by William Zinsser.

These are my summary notes on 'Style' from a book "On Writing Well" written by William Zinsser.

3. Clutter is an Enemy of Good Writing

1. Clutter is like weeds. Farmers are always behind weeds to fight, writers are also slightly behind clutter.
2. All the prepositions that are draped onto verbs that do not need any help are clutters. For instance, an "up" in "head committees up" and "we face up to the problems when we can free up a few minutes" does not serve any purpose.
3. Some adjectives come into the language to distinguish one with another thing but they debase both the language and the purpose of their use.  Such as, "personal" in "a personal friend of mine", "his personal feeling" or "her personal physician" debases both language and friendship, feeling, and physician. In these phrases the "personal" can be eliminated.
4. "Clutter is the laborious phrase that has pushed out the short word that means the same thing." Phrases like "currently”, “at the present time," or "presently", replace "now" in people and businesses.
5. "Clutter is the ponderous euphemism that turns a slum into a depressed socioeconomic area, garbage collectors into waste disposal personnel and the town dump into the volume reduction unit."
6. "Clutter is political correctness gone amok."
7. "Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes." The General Motors used "volume-related production-schedule adjustment" to inform they had a plant shutdown. When companies completely fail or go belly-up, they are said to have "a negative cash-flow position."
8. "Clutter is the language of the Pentagon calling an invasion a "reinforced protective reaction strike" and justifying its vast budgets on the need for "counterforce deterrence."
9. Clutter remains as the verbal camouflage that reaches its new heights. To mean "now," General Alexander Haig started saying "at this juncture of maturization" during his tenure as President Reagan's secretary of state.    
10. "Clutter is the enemy." "Beware, then, of the long word that's no better than the short word: "assistance" (help), "numerous" (many), "facilitate" (ease), "individual", (man or woman), "remainder" (rest), "initial" (first), "implement”, (do), "sufficient" (enough), "attempt" (try), "referred to as" (called) and hundreds more."
11. "Beware of all the slippery new fad words: paradigm and parameter, prioritize and potentialize. They are all weeds that will smother what you write."
12. Phrases like "It should be pointed out" and "It is interesting to note" can be added in sentences when it should be pointed out or if it is interesting to note.
13. " Don't inflate what needs no inflating: "with the possible exception of" (except), "due to the fact that" (because), "he totally lacked the ability to" (he couldn't), "until such time as" (until), "for the purpose of" (for)."
14. "Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Re-examine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? Is anything pompous or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging on to something useless just because you think it's beautiful?"

These are my summary notes on 'Clutter' from a book "On Writing Well" written by William Zinsser.

Image: Art Supplies Clutter on Wooden Table in Art Studio, Marshall Arts Gallery, Memphis, United States

                Image source: Khara Woods kharaoke, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons