Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in On Writing Well, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Human Element
Simplicity vs. Clutter
Process and Organization
The Gift of Writing
Summary
Analysis
The most important part of an article is the lead, or the very beginning, which has to catch the reader’s attention. The lead can be any length, as long as it’s effective. But usually, it has to be entertaining and explain why the article is important; effective articles transition from entertaining readers to giving them key details. And the last sentence of every paragraph should be as interesting as possible, to hold the reader’s attention for one more paragraph.
A lead is a hook, not an introduction: its goal is to win readers over, not present the writer’s main ideas. As with word choice, unities, and style, Zinsser can’t give one-size-fits-all advice about leads. Instead, leads have to fit the writer, material, and context. Some readers might find his broad advice frustrating, but Zinsser wants to help them succeed in the broad range of situations they’ll likely encounter. If he just focused on how to write a specific kind of lead, he would be denying writers’ own creativity. Plus, since leads have to surprise and entertain the reader, they give writers an opportunity to show off their style and personality.
Themes
Zinsser compares a few different effective leads. He starts with one of his own, from an article about the poultry industry’s campaign to promote chicken hot dogs. He uses humorous comments and quotes to grab the reader’s attention before going into more detail. Next, Zinsser looks at a slower lead from an article he wrote about the Baseball Hall of Fame. He opens by describing the tree bark that a player chewed to create more saliva and improve his spitballs. This lead depends more on piquing the reader’s curiosity than surprising them or making them laugh.
Zinsser’s leads fit the overall message and tone of his articles. The chicken hot dog piece is worth reading because it’s funny and lighthearted, so he leads with a series of jokes to introduce this tone. The baseball article is really about the obsession that drives players to greatness and brings fans to visit the Hall of Fame, so Zinsser leads with a detail that links both of these obsessions. In both these cases, he could have chosen a number of compelling leads, but he chose these because they introduced his articles’ tone, content, and major motifs all at once.
Themes
Zinsser notes that his best leads often come from random facts, so he advises writers to over-research, as long as it doesn’t distract them from writing. He also suggests looking for material in unexpected places, like billboards, electric bills, restaurant menus, and newspaper classified ads. Finally, he tells writers to avoid cliché leads, like imagining what a “future archaeologist” would think of our civilization or asking what several famous people have in common.
Zinsser’s golden rule for leads is that they have to fit the material. That’s why quirky facts and unexpected quotes make good leads: they’re memorable, and they show the reader what’s distinctive about the article they’re about to read. Meanwhile, clichés don’t do either: they’re too overused to grab the reader’s attention, and they’re too general to signal anything about the specific article.
Themes
Zinsser looks at two more leads. In her article about Howard Hughes’s defunct L.A. office, Joan Didion uses details about Hollywood’s past to surround the building with a sense of mystery. In his article about the Dead Sea Scrolls, Edmund Wilson just explains how a Bedouin boy discovered them in a cave, which shows how simple stories can also be effective leads. Ultimately, many different kinds of leads can be successful, as long as they fit the material and attract the reader. Zinsser points out how seven famous nonfiction books, ranging from the Bible to The Feminine Mystique, essentially tell their whole stories in their opening sentences.
In her lead, Joan Didion taps into the emotions that will drive readers’ interest in her piece: their curiosity about Hollywood’s inner workings and attachment to it as a cultural symbol. Edmund Wilson’s lead fits his material because the story of the Dead Sea Scrolls is so extraordinary that it practically speaks for itself. Didion and Wilson’s leads are effective not only because they grab the reader’s attention, but also because they specifically show the reader why the article they’re about to read is so compelling.
Themes
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It’s also important to end articles well. Many writers assume that their readers are already hooked, so they drag on long after they should have concluded. Students learn to end their essays with a conclusion section to summarize their point, but professional writers lose their readers if they do that. Instead, nonfiction writers should try to surprise and satisfy their readers with well-timed, clever endings. For example, H.L. Mencken ends an article about Calvin Coolidge with a sarcastic, funny comment about Coolidge’s utterly boring presidency. Often, writers can end with a reference to the lead or a funny quote. For instance, Zinsser closed an article about Woody Allen with Allen’s irrelevant, totally unexpected comment about his mother.
Zinsser views endings in practically the same way as leads. They’re important structural components of a work, and writers should plan them carefully. But good endings surprise and entertain—they don’t just summarize, like concluding paragraphs in school essays. Put differently, instead of reminding the reader what they’ve done throughout the article in their conclusions, writers should simply do more of it. Both Mencken and Zinsser’s jokes are successful because they capture each article’s main idea—Coolidge is useless and Woody Allen is full of funny nonsequiturs—while also surprising and amusing the reader.
Themes
