On Writing Well Study Guide

A self-described sheltered child, William Zinsser was born in New York City, where his family has lived and managed a shellac factory since the early 1800s. He attended the prestigious Deerfield Academy prep school in Massachusetts and then studied at Princeton University. During World War II, he was conscripted into the U.S. Army and fought in North Africa and Italy. In the war, Zinsser’s commanding officer noticed his penchant for writing and assigned him to write a history of their unit. This made a lasting impact on Zinsser, and after the war, he got his dream job working for his favorite newspaper, the New York Herald Tribune. He wrote for the paper’s education section, then helped edit its Sunday review, then took charge of its drama section, became its movie critic, and wrote various editorials until 1959, when he quit and became a freelancer. During the 1960s, he wrote seven books and numerous columns for magazines like Life, Sports Illustrated, and The New York Times Magazine. During this period, some of his favorite projects were travel articles and commissioned books for the New York Public Library and the Book-of-the-Month Club. He started teaching nonfiction writing at Indiana University in 1968, then went on to teach and edit the alumni magazine at Yale University during the 1970s. During this period, he also served as the master of Yale’s Branford College and wrote his biggest hit, On Writing Well, which earned him speaking gigs all around the United States. During the 1980s, he oversaw the Book-of-the-Month Club, continued writing articles for major national magazines, and published several of his most important nonfiction books, like Mitchell & Ruff and Spring Training. From the 1990s onward, he dedicated himself to writing, mentoring young writers, and playing jazz piano around New York. Zinsser died in 2015 at the age of 92.

Zinsser believes that the elements of good writing never change, so he sees his writing advice as timeless. Still, On Writing Well is firmly rooted in the history and literary traditions of the 20th-century United States. For example, Zinsser examines how World War II and its aftermath shaped the history of American literature and journalism. Zinsser served in the war himself, and he credits a life-changing boxcar journey across North Africa with inspiring his interest in travel and adventure. (He returns to North Africa with his piece on Timbuktu, which he cites in the chapter “A Writer’s Decisions.”) Similarly, Zinsser argues that the war opened Americans’ eyes to the world, inspired them to read more about it, and eventually made nonfiction more popular than fiction for the first time in the United States. In other passages, Zinsser notes how the rise of television, the Vietnam War, and the early days of the internet changed Americans’ reading habits. By the 1970s, he argues, nonfiction had become the true American literature. He also covers several fads and trends in American nonfiction, like the memoir boom of the 1990s. Finally, Zinsser updated On Writing Well several times over the years in order to incorporate writing samples and advice that better reflect the changing face of American literature. For instance, he included excerpts from a number of women writers and writers of color. He added several chapters and updated the references in several others. For instance, he updated his “Science and Technology” chapter to include writing about more recent scientific discoveries. He also added advice for writing on a word processor, then removed it once word-processing became a universal skill.

William Zinsser’s wrote 19 books and countless magazine pieces during his lengthy career as a writer, which lasted from 1946 to 2012. On Writing Well is still by far his most popular work, but Mitchell & Ruff: An American Profile in Jazz was his favorite to write. Zinsser’s other major nonfiction books include Spring Training: The Unique American Story of Baseball's Annual Season of Renewal and American Places: A Writer’s Pilgrimage to Sixteen of This Country’s Most Visited and Cherished Sites. His other books on writing include Writing to Learn: How to Write—and Think—Clearly about Any Subject at All and Writing About Your Life: A Journey into the Past. Finally, Zinsser’s memoir, Writing Places: The Life Journey of a Writer and Teacher, includes two chapters about the making of On Writing Well. He explains that his models for On Writing Well were Strunk and White’s famous guide Elements of Style and one of his favorite nonfiction books, Alec Wilder’s American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950. He also credits Casey Miller and Kate Swift’s Handbook of Nonsexist Writing: For Writers, Editors, and Speakers for teaching him to use gender-neutral language. In Writing Places, he also admits that he referenced almost no women in the original version of On Writing Well—the sole exception was Joan Didion’s collection of magazine pieces, Slouching Toward Bethlehem. However, he tried to remedy this in later editions by excerpting works by writers like Maxine Hong Kingston (The Woman Warrior) and Janice Kaplan (Women and Sports). All in all, he references dozens of prominent writers in On Writing Well. For instance, he admires H.L. Mencken’s magazine writing, which is collected in The Vintage Mencken and Red Smith’s sports writing, which is collected in books like The Red Smith Reader.