October 23, 2022 by Philip Lewenstein

Learning from Gurus of Writing

In a culture, knowledge is passed from generation to generation. Purveyors of knowledge may be known as gurus.

A guru, according to Merriam Webster, can be a personal religious teacher or a spiritual guide (as in Hinduism or Buddhism). Further, a guru can be a teacher, one who is an acknowledged leader or chief proponent, or a person with a high level of knowledge in a field.

Editors of The Minnesota Reformer, an independent online news organization, have referred to my son as a guru in plain language and administrative rulemaking. He has contributed columns to The Reformer; MinnPost, a non-profit online newspaper; and other publications such as the Michigan Bar Journal (official journal of the state bar of Michigan) and Bench & Bar of Minnesota (official publication of the Minnesota State Bar Association).

My son emphasizes the importance of plain language, particularly as an antidote to clutter, legalese, and jargon, which obstruct readers’ understanding. He is a board member of the Center for Plain Language, a non-profit organization that helps government agencies and businesses “write so clearly that their intended audience understands what they are saying the first time that they read or hear it.”

I applaud my son’s lofty status as a plain language guru given my education and professional experience in communications. I have been called a “wordsmith,” never a “guru.”

Writing is the foundation of effective communication. It is important in one’s personal life, career, education, and community. Even with the growth of technology and digital media, writing is still important, perhaps more important than ever.

Many benefits accrue from good writing: it helps one learn, remember, think clearer, and solve problems.

Several Gurus Have Influenced My Writing Approach

The labeling of my son as a guru has inspired me to reflect on the gurus who have influenced my writing and editing skills.

I learned from gurus in college and my early career. Further, over time, I have cultivated an interest in four well-known writing gurus: E.B. White, William Zinsser, John McPhee, and James Patterson. Since I have never met them, I refer to them as “external” gurus.

At the University of Minnesota, my first writing and editing gurus were composition instructors and journalism professors. I arrived at the University of Minnesota in 1966 excited to pursue a major in journalism.

I prided myself as a good writer until my first composition class fall quarter, three credits, paired with a two-credit literature course. Essay after essay resulted in a D or rare C. I visited the instructor during her office hours every week, trying to learn from my many errors to meet her high standards. She was my first writing guru.

Subsequently, my writing improved thanks to instructors and professors in three additional  composition classes and numerous journalism writing and editing classes at the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University.

Meanwhile, I worked every day at the Minnesota Daily, the campus newspaper, under the wing of talented college editors and writers—gurus in quality journalism reporting and writing.

Then, after completing a master’s degree in journalism at Northwestern, I became a copy editor at the San Bernardino, California, Sun-Telegram in the early 1970s. Two veteran editors, Fred and Ed, helped me develop and sharpen my editing skills (“Important Role of Copy Editing Should Be Respected, Preserved,” www.philsfocus.com, Oct. 2, 2017). They were top-notch gurus.

Over the years, I have expanded my knowledge of writing and editing by discovering the work of several well-known professional writers who have described their craft in books and articles. Among the many professional resources, I have focused on the following four “external” gurus: E.B. White, William Zinsser, John McPhee, and James Patterson.

The wisdom of these gurus has shaped my approach to writing, editing, and teaching. First, a strong inter-relationship exists between reading, thinking, and writing. Second, writing is a process with four major stages: prewriting, organizing, drafting, and revising. Different experts, or gurus, may organize the stages differently, but the basics are the same.

Before writing, one needs to think about and plan; then, one needs to organize thoughts and information. Third, is the drafting, or writing. But that’s not the end. All writers revise their work; many writers go through several drafts, each time improving their product. This last stage is revision.

As part of the process, a writer must determine the purpose, or reason to write; the audience, or reader; and tone, or attitude toward the subject and reader. Then, the writer must find the central point. Everything one writes—a letter, a text, an email, a blog, an essay—should have a main point. Everything else one writes will relate to and support this main point.

White, Zinsser, McPhee, and Patterson emphasize several key aspects of the writing process, including a plan, an outline, word choice, economy, and revision.

White Refines Elements of Style

My first external guru was E.B. White, who enlarged and revised The Elements of Style, a  writing style guide first written by Cornell University English professor William Strunk Jr. in 1918 and published by Harcourt in 1920, according to Wikipedia. A revised edition by Strunk and editor Edward A. Tenney was published in 1935.

The book comprised eight elementary rules of usage, ten elementary principles of composition, a few matters of form, a list of 49 words and expressions commonly misused, and a list of 57 words often misspelled.

MacMillan and Company commissioned White to revise The Elements for a 1959 edition. White, who worked at The New Yorker, had studied writing under Strunk in 1919. The first edition of what informally became known as “Strunk & White” sold about two million copies in 1959.

I purchased the first edition at the University of Minnesota bookstore in 1966 for 95 cents. The manual may have been required for one of my courses. I don’t have the 1972 second edition but do have the 1979 third edition and 2000 fourth edition.

Zinsser says that every writer should read The Elements once a year. I followed his advice for many years and continue to refer to it. In 2011, Time referred to the book as one of the 100-best and most influential books written in English since 1923.

I have underlined several passages in my three editions. Strunk focused on cultivating good writing and composition. Some elementary principles of composition include choosing a suitable design and holding to it, making the paragraph the unit of composition, using the active voice, putting statements in positive form, using definite, specific, concrete language, and omitting needless words. My favorite passage is the following:

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

Referring to this “masterly Strunkian elaboration of this noble theme,” White, in his introduction, says that, “There you have a short, valuable essay on the nature and beauty of brevity—fifty-nine words that could change the world.”

Critics of The Elements claim that it has a prescriptivist nature, or that it has become an anachronism in the face of modern English usage, according to Wikipedia.

Zinsser Carries Out War on Clutter

My second external guru is William Zinsser. As I began to teach writing, I looked for resources. I started with my editions of Elements of Style. I then noticed a 2006 paperback on my bookshelves, On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser. I later noticed that I had the initial 1976 hardcover edition.

Zinsser, who died in 2015 at age 92, was a writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, and professor. He wrote 18 books, but was best known for On Writing Well, in its 30^th edition.

He views writing as a “personal transaction” that is at the heart of good nonfiction writing. “Out of it come two of the most important qualities that this book will go in search of: humanity and warmth,” Zinsser says. “Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it’s not a question of gimmicks to ‘personalize’ the author. It’s a question of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest clarity and strength.”

Writing is learned by imitation, Zinsser says. “I’d say I learned to write by reading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and trying to figure out how they did it. But cultivate the best models.”

Zinsser emphasizes that 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 is because it is hard.”

Zinsser declared all-out war on clutter. He focused on economy in writing—the theory that “writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it.” He refers to clutter as the disease of American writing. “We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon.

“Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds—the writer is always slightly behind,” he says. “Clutter is the laborious phrase that has pushed out the short word that means the same thing.

“Clutter is the ponderous euphemism that turns a slum into a depressed socioeconomic area, garbage collectors into waste disposal personnel, and the town dump into the volume reduction unit.

“Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes. It is the language of the Pentagon calling an invasion a ‘reinforced protective reaction strike’ and justifying its vast budget on the need for ‘counterforce deterrence.’”

Every profession has its growing arsenal of jargon to throw dust in the eyes of the populace, Zinsser writes. “Clutter is the enemy,” he says. “Be aware, then, of the long word that’s no better than the short word: assistance (help), numerous (many), facilitate (ease), implement (do), for example.

“Beware of all the slippery new fad words: paradigm and parameter, prioritize and potentialize. They are all weeds that will smother what you write. Don’t dialogue with someone you can talk to. Don’t interface with anybody.”

Zinsser says to “look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Reexamine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? Is anything pompous, or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging onto something useless just because you think it’s beautiful? Simplify Simplify.”

The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components, Zinsser says. “Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of the sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to education and rank.”

The answer to clearing one’s head of clutter is clear thinking, Zinsser says. “Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can’t exist without the other. It’s impossible for a muddy thinker to write good English. He may get away with it for a paragraph or two, but soon the reader will be lost, and there’s no sin so grave, for the reader will not easily be lured back.”

Zinsser says the reader is someone with an attention span of 30 seconds—a person assailed by many forces competing for attention.

One will never make a mark as a writer unless he or she “develops a respect for words and a curiosity about their shades of meaning that is almost obsessive,” Zinsser says. “The English language is rich in strong and supple words. Take time to root around and find the ones you want.”

A writer must avoid “journalese, the common currency of newspapers and magazines like People—a mixture of cheap words, made-up words, and cliches that have become so pervasive that a writer can hardly help using them.”

Also, use dictionaries, he says. “If you have any doubt of what a word means, look it up. Learn its etymology and notice what curious branches its original root has put forth. See if it has any meanings you didn’t know it had. Master the small gradations between words that seem to be synonyms.

“And bear in mind, when you’re choosing words and stringing them together, how they sound. This may seem absurd: readers read with their eyes. But in fact, they hear what they are reading far more than you realize. Therefore such matters as rhythm and alliteration are vital to every sentence.”

Zinsser says to read everything aloud. “I write entirely by ear and read everything aloud before letting it go out into the world, he says. “You’ll begin to hear where the trouble lies.

“Remember that words are the only tools you’ve got. Learn to use them with originality and care. And also remember: somebody out there is listening.”

Rewriting is the essence of writing, Zinsser says. “It’s where the game is won or lost.

That idea is hard to accept. We all have an emotional equity in our first draft; we can’t believe that it wasn’t born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn’t. Most writers don’t initially say what they want to say, or say it as well as they could.

“The newly-hatched sentence almost always has something wrong with it. It is not clear. It’s not logical. It’s verbose. It’s klunky. It’s pretentious. It’s boring. It’s full of clutter. It’s full of clichés. It lacks rhythm. It can be read in several different ways. It doesn’t lead out of the previous sentence. It doesn’t….The point is that clear writing is the result of a lot of tinkering.”

Most rewriting, Zinsser says, consists of reshaping and tightening and refining the raw material one wrote on the first try. “Much of it consists of making sure you’ve given the reader a narrative flow he can follow with no trouble from beginning to end.”

McPhee Emphasizes Importance of Revision

The third external guru I discovered was John McPhee, who has taught creative nonfiction writing at Princeton University since 1975 and has written more than 30 books. He began his writing career at Time and has written for The New Yorker since the mid-1960s.

On a trip to Princeton in August 2021, I purchased a copy of McPhee’s first book, A Sense of Where You Are. Published in 1965, the book profiles Bill Bradley, former Princeton and professional basketball star and U.S. senator.

McPhee’s books cover eclectic subjects such as Alaska, geology, oranges, fishing, farmers’ markets, the psyche and experience of a nuclear engineer, and the wilderness of southern New Jersey.

My blog on finding golf balls (“Finding Golf Balls Is Not a Compulsion, But I Sure Enjoy the Sport,” www.philsfocus.com , Nov. 6, 2017) was inspired by his article on finding golf balls (“The Orange Trapper,” The New Yorker, July 1, 2013).

I have been impressed by McPhee’s approach to discipline in writing, the importance of organization, and revision.

McPhee’s first job after college was writing live television plays, according to Time writer Sean Gregory (“The Brief Time with…Time, Dec. 17, 2018). To discipline himself, McPhee would sometimes strap himself into a chair with a bathrobe belt, Gregory reports.

“A writer grows on the volume of what the writer writes,” McPhee told Gregory. “People standing around, over drinks, talking about writing, isn’t writing. Writing is when you go off on your own, close the door, and fight it out with the blank screen or paper. That is the No. 1 teacher.”

McPhee requires that his students submit an outline with every written assignment, Gregory notes. “Sooner or later you have to have a sense of structure, or all you’ve got is a bowl of spaghetti,” McPhee says. McPhee will accept anything, according to Gregory—I, II, III, A, B, C, or a doodle, little stick figures. “It’s just a basic idea of thinking things out before you do it,” McPhee says. “It can be applied to almost anything.”

McPhee discusses his writing process in Draft No. 4 (2017), noting that the “difference between a common writer and an improviser on a stage (or any performing artist) is that writing can be revised. Actually, the essence of the process is revision. The adulating portrait of the perfect writer who never blots a line comes express mail from fairyland.”

Author Ben Yagoda says that Draft No. 4 “is armored with many useful cobbles about writing,” including on choosing an opening, or lead to a piece, on revision, and on knowing when a piece is finished (“A Master Class in Creative Nonfiction,” The Wall Street Journal, Saturday/Sunday, Sept. 2-3, 2017).

“Assent, demur or file away for future reflection, Mr. McPhee’s observations about writing are always invigorating to engage with,”Yagoda says “And Draft No. 4 belongs on the short shelf of essential books about the craft.”

McPhee says that the four-to-one ratio in writing time—first draft versus the other drafts combined—has for him been consistent in projects of any length, even if the first draft takes a few days or weeks. 

“First drafts are slow and develop clumsily, because every sentence affects not only those before it but also those that follow,” McPhee says. “The first draft of a long piece on California geology took two gloomy years; the second, third, and fourth drafts took about six months altogether.”

The way to do a piece of writing is three or four times over, never once. “The hardest part comes first, getting something—anything—out in front of me,” McPhee says.

“Sometimes in a nervous frenzy I just fling words as if I were flinging mud at a wall. Blurt out, heave out, babble something—anything—as a first draft. With that, you have achieved a sort of nucleus. Then, as you work it over and alter it, you begin to shape sentences that score higher with the ear and eye.

“Edit it again—top to bottom. The chances are that about now you’ll be seeing something that you are sort of eager for others to see. And all that takes time.”

Toward the end of the second draft, McPhee feels he has something to show other people, “something that seems to be working and is not going to go away. The feeling is more than welcome, yes, but it is hardly euphoria. It’s just a new lease on life, a sense that I’m going to survive until the middle of next month.”

After reading the second draft aloud, and going through the piece for the third time, McPhee encloses things in boxes for Draft No. 4.

“If I enjoy anything in this process, it is Draft No. 4,” McPhee says. “I go searching for replacements for words in the boxes. The final adjustments may be small-scale, but they are large to me, and I love addressing them. You could call this the copy-editing phase if real copy editors were not out there in the future prepared to examine the piece.”

Patterson Shares Insights to His Writing Style in New Memoir

My fourth external guru is James Patterson, one of the world’s greatest storytellers. He reveals much about his writing style in his recently-published memoir (James Patterson: The Stories of My Life, 2022). Key takeaways are his storytelling approach, his emphasis on outlining, his revision process, and his focus on reading.

Patterson describes his style as colloquial storytelling, which he says is a valid form of expression. “If you wrote down your favorite story to tell, there might not be any great sentences, but it still could be outstanding,” he says. “Try it out. Write down a good story you tell friends.

“When I write, I pretend there’s someone sitting across from me—and I don’t want that person to get up until I’m finished with the story.”

Patterson’s writing career began while he was working as a psych aide at a mental hospital. With much free time, he read everything he could find. His reading helped inspire his writing style.

“Then I started scribbling my own short stories, hundreds of them,” he says. “That was the beginning of the end. I was now officially an addict. I wanted to write the kind of novel that was read and reread so many times the binding broke and the book literally fell apart, pages scattered in the wind. I’m still working on that one.”

After a stint at Vanderbilt University, Patterson went to New York City and needing money went to work in advertising at J. Walter Thompson; he advanced from copy writer to creative director to chief executive officer at age 38.

Meanwhile, he would write by hand—in pencil—his novel early every morning, then, report for work.

Patterson often is asked about his writing process. He writes a 50-to 80-page outline for every book, three or four drafts of every outline. He writes with a pencil because he likes being able to erase things, “and I’m pretty good at admitting when I make a mistake. At this point, I can’t imagine writing on a computer. It’d be like starting all over again as a novelist.”

When he writes a first draft, Patterson tries “to get the bones of the story down on paper. I don’t worry about the language. It’s a lot like the way some painters and illustrators work. They do a rough outline, and if they like it, they fill it in, change things, add, delete.

“I’ve always felt polishing scenes too early makes it hard to delete them even if they should go. You start thinking, Oh, I can’t throw out that chapter. Oh, I love those two sentences. Oh, man, I love that word choice.

“What you should be thinking is ‘That doesn’t belong in the book, toss it.’ When I’m writing a second or third draft, I’ll scribble at the top of the chapters ‘Be There.’ I’m trying to remind myself to be in the scene, to feel the scene. If I don’t feel it, how can I expect the reader to?”

When Patterson speaks to kids, he tells them he wants them to memorize one word: “o babies! Outline, outline, outline!

“Outline your book reports, outline any speech you have to make in school, outline your emails, outline the texts you send to your friends,” he says. “And please try to keep your brains open to new ideas. You don’t have to accept everything people tell you, but at least listen to what they have to say.”

Patterson recognizes the strong relationship between reading, thinking, and writing. He emphasizes the importance of reading, particularly for children.

“Millions of kids in this country have never read a single book that they love,” Patterson says. “That’s the truth. So is the fact that tens of millions of our kids—over 50 percent of them across America—don’t read at grade level. That’s so tragic and avoidable, it’s hard to fathom, hard to write about. And it’s happening in the richest country in the world.”

Patterson is passionate in saying he believes reading can save lives, “and we do have the power to get our kids reading. So I desperately want to turn every kid in every classroom into a reading addict. I want to turn them into reading zombies—the Reading Dead.

“I want to get every kid in the country reading and loving it,” he says. “No child left illiterate.”

I’m proud that my son is recognized as a plain language guru. And I’m grateful for the gurus—instructors and editors—who helped me in my education and early career. Further, I appreciate my “external” gurus—White, Zinsser, McPhee, and Patterson—who have taken time to share the wisdom of their craft in their articles and books.