On Writing Well

Don’t be kind of bold. Be bold.

Don’t say you weren’t too happy because the hotel was pretty expensive. Say you weren’t happy because the hotel was expensive.

Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed.

Verbs are the most important of all your tools. They push the sentence forward and give it momentum. Active verbs push hard; passive verbs tug fitfully.

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.

“Who am I writing for?” It’s a fundamental question, and it has a fundamental answer: You are writing for yourself.

Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds—the writer is always slightly behind.

Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say? Surprisingly often they don’t know.

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.

Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can’t exist without the other.

But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.