How to Not Write Bad: The Most Common Writing Problems and the Best Ways to Avoidthem

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Why a book on how to not write bad (or badly, if you insist)?

I’m glad you asked. Simply put, this is a crucial and seriously underrepresented county in the Alaska-size state of books about writing. From the all-time champ, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, through more touchy-feely works like Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, texts on this subject virtually all have the same goal. Sometimes it’s implicit, and sometimes it’s right there in the title, as in William Zinsser’s classic guide, On Writing Well.

That emphasis is fine, but it has its limitations. In a way, it reminds me of the “vanity sizing” favored by the apparel industry — the custom of labeling thirty-four-inch-waist pants as thirty-two so as to make customers feel good about themselves (and buy that company’s pant, needless to say). I have spent the last twenty years teaching advanced journalism and writing classes in a selective university, and the majority of my (bright) students put me in mind of what Jack Nicholson famously shouted to Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men. The Cruise character couldn’t handle the truth, Nicholson said. Well, most students, I’ve found, can’t handle writing “well.” At this point in their writing lives, that goal is simply too ambitious.

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