Exposition (Rhetoric)

On Writing Well- 25th Anniversary - The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction On Writing Well

4 stars (Excellent) - This is an excellent and important book of its genre, but I will never forget Frank McCourt's repeated advice to us after studying creative writing with him in High School -- write what you know. If you just stick to that little kernel, the worst grammer, the worst punctuation, the worst spelling -- none of it will matter. When you know your subject, the writing is effortless... and amazing. 5 stars (RE: Synaptic Mogul's Puzzling Review) - I too read Bill Zinsser--years ago. It puzzles me that Synaptic mogul could review Shadow Divers--a poorly written book--with the benefit of having just read On Writing Well--an excellent book--and discover no writing errors whatsoever. (See my review of Shadow Divers.) I wonder what Bill Zinsser himself would say about Shadow Divers? On Writing Well was the best book of it's time. Now there are other books that are as good as Zinsser's, or better,"Words Fail Me," for instance. 5 stars (How To Improve Your Book Reviews on Amazon) - Zinsser asserts that writing well can be learned. This is good news. I thought I wrote well until I compared my reviews to those of some of the consistent top reviewers on Amazon. How do they do that? According to Zinsser (and affirmed by Tom Clancy on a TV interview), good writers follow rules, editing each sentence and paragraph multiple times. They write against deadlines whether or not they're feeling inspired. When done properly, the finished product can look deceptively simple to write. Following is my liberally abridged summary of Zinsser's rules: 1. Do - prune out every word that does not perform a necessary function. Strip each sentence to its cleanest components. A clear sentence is no accident. 2. Do - use the thesaurus liberally. Learn the small gradations between word that seem to be synonyms. 3. Do - try to improve the rhythm by reversing the order of a sentence, substituting a word that has freshness or oddity and by varying the lengths of sentences....
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