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Timbuktu is a city on the edge of the Sahara Desert in present-day northern Mali. In Western culture, it’s famously viewed as a mythical, unreachable, or even nonexistent place. In reality, it was an important commercial and educational capital for many centuries, but it is now a small provincial capital. In the chapter “A Writer’s Decisions,” William Zinsser goes through the many stylistic choices that nonfiction writers have to make by walking the reader through an article he wrote for Condé Nast Traveler magazine about traveling to Timbuktu.
Timbuktu Quotes in On Writing Well
The On Writing Well quotes below are all either spoken by Timbuktu or refer to Timbuktu. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 23
Quotes
What struck me most powerfully when I got to Timbuktu was that the streets were of sand. I suddenly realized that sand is very different from dirt. Every town starts with dirt streets that eventually get paved as the inhabitants prosper and subdue their environment. But sand represents defeat. A city with streets of sand is a city at the edge.
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At such moments I ask myself one very helpful question: “What is the piece really about?” (Not just “What is the piece about?”) Fondness for material you’ve gone to a lot of trouble to gather isn’t a good enough reason to include it if it’s not central to the story you’ve chosen to tell. Self-discipline bordering on masochism is required. The only consolation for the loss of so much material is that it isn’t totally lost; it remains in your writing as an intangible that the reader can sense. Readers should always feel that you know more about your subject than you’ve put in writing.
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Getting on the plane has taken me to unusual stories all over the world and all over America, and it still does. That isn’t to say I’m not nervous when I leave for the airport; I always am—that’s part of the deal. (A little nervousness gives writing an edge.) But I’m always replenished when I get back home.
As a nonfiction writer you must get on the plane. If a subject interests you, go after it, even if it’s in the next county or the next state or the next country. It’s not going to come looking for you.
Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.
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Timbuktu Term Timeline in On Writing Well
The timeline below shows where the term Timbuktu appears in On Writing Well. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 23: A Writer’s Decisions
...how these decisions work, Zinsser will walk the reader through his article “The News From Timbuktu.”
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...reader’s attention while giving context about the story. Zinsser opens his article by explaining that Timbuktu’s streets are made of sand, which represents the city’s defeat by the desert—and by history....
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In his next two paragraphs, Zinsser quickly summarizes Timbuktu’s history, then explains how he ended up going there after seeing a travel agency’s ad....
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In the next four paragraphs, Zinsser covers his group’s route to Timbuktu. He briefly introduces Mali’s geography and describes its colorful capital of Bamako. He also mentions...
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Zinsser uses humor to describe his group flying to Timbuktu as the salt caravan marches there from the opposite direction. To build rapport with his...
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In the next section of his Timbuktu article, Zinsser quotes his tour guide, who explains that the specific salt caravan they’re looking...
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