On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

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Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual—it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain. Short paragraphs put air around what you write and make it look inviting, whereas a long chunk of type can discourage a reader from even starting to read When you’re writing a story, you’re telling yourself a story. When you rewrite, you’re taking out all the things that are not the story.” Unity of pronoun. Are you going to write in the first person, as a participant, or in the third person, as an observer?

You just have to go on when it is worst and most helpless — there is only one thing to do with a novel and that is go straight on through to the end of the damn thing.” — Ernest Hemingway Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” — Henry David Thoreau The difference between the almost right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” — Mark Twain One of my high school teachers was well-known for saying “you never get a second chance to make a good first impression.” The more I thought about it the more I grew to like this piece of wisdom. Especially for how it applies to writing. It’s easier to be natural and retain your humanity. 6. Don’t get caught up with pleasing your audience.My aim in constructing sentences is to make the sentence utterly easy to understand, writing what I call transparent prose. I’ve failed dreadfully if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out what I meant.” — Ken Follett

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.”

When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.” — George Orwell You miss 100% of the shots that you never take — Wayne Gretsky,” as Michael Scott once said. In tribute to this sentiment, these writing quotes help show why it’s important not to let failure or rejection get you down. When Published: 1976 (1st ed.); 1980 (2nd ed.); 1985 (3rd ed.); 1990 (4th ed.); 1994 (5th ed.); 1998 (6th ed.); 2001 (25th Anniversary ed.); 2006 (30th Anniversary ed.) If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." — Toni Morrison