Writing That Works
A Reading List for the (Legal) Writer
“I believe that writing is derivative. I think good writing comes from good reading.” This sentiment, from beloved American journalist and author Charles Kuralt, has been borne out in my own journey as a legal writer. I enjoy reading, both for work and for leisure, and few things bring me more pleasure than reading excellent writing.
I especially enjoy reading books about good writing. Over the years, I’ve read many such books; some of them focus on good legal writing, but many of them explore good writing more generally. I find it fascinating to peer into the minds of expert writers, and I find it comforting to learn that many of them experience the same struggles and insecurities I do. How will I ever finish this project? Is what I’ve written worth reading? Will anyone want to read it? Could I have come up with a better finished product?
In this column, I share five books on writing that have taught me valuable lessons. These books aren’t about legal writing, but they’re all highly relevant to our work as legal writers. And they’re all “easy reads,” offering a refreshing change of pace from much of the professional reading we do as lawyers.
1. Strunk & White, The Elements of Style.
Perhaps no other book on writing style has enjoyed the same longevity as this classic. The first version, written by William Strunk Jr. in 1918, consisted of 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.” In 1959, writer and editor E. B. White greatly enlarged and revised the book for publication, resulting in the first edition of the book we know and love. Today, The Elements of Style is in its fourth edition, and it remains remarkably timely and helpful.
Not surprisingly, Strunk and White’s book is itself an exemplar of the elements of style. Consider this passage, which elaborates on their view that clarity is not “the prize” in writing, or even “the principal mark” of good style:
But since writing is communication, clarity can only be a virtue. And although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one. Even to a writer who is being intentionally obscure or wild of tongue we can say, “Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand!” Even to writers of market letters, telling us (but not telling us) which securities are promising, we can say, “Be cagey plainly! Be elliptical in a straightforward fashion!”[1]
2. William Zinsser, On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction.
William Zinsser was a lifelong journalist and nonfiction writer who began his career on the New York Herald Tribune in 1946. Over the years, he authored many books, articles, and columns about writing; On Writing Well is probably his most well-known work. First published in 1976, On Writing Well proceeds from the premise that good nonfiction writing “has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it’s not a question of using ‘gimmicks’ to personalize the author. It’s a question of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest strength and the least clutter.”[2]
The following passage is from the chapter titled “Simplicity.”
Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills, and meaningless jargon. . . . But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. 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 a sentence. And they usually occur, ironically, in proportion to education and rank.[3]
This passage resonates with me, because as a legal writing professor, one of my greatest challenges is helping new legal writers “declutter” their writing.
3. Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.
The title of Lamott’s 1994 nonfiction book was inspired by advice Lamott’s writer father gave to his young son, who sat, paralyzed, trying to finish an ornithological report due at school the next morning. Lamott’s father urged his son to “just write it.” When the son asked how, Lamott’s father replied, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
When I read Bird by Bird the first time (I’ve reread it at least twice since), I identified with Lamott’s descriptions of the messy process of creating excellent writing. In Lamott’s usual witty and relatable style, Bird by Bird offers practical advice about getting started on a writing project, avoiding perfectionism in the drafting stage, seeking helpful feedback, and knowing when the writing project is done.
The passage below is from a section of Chapter One called “Perfectionism.”
Your day’s work might turn out to have been a mess. So what? Vonnegut said, “When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” So go ahead and make big scrawls and mistakes. Use up lots of paper. Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here—and, by extension, what we’re supposed to be writing.[4]
4. Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.
Published in 2003, Truss’s #1 British bestseller became an instant classic; one critic described it as a “manifesto” for those who are “punctilious about punctuation.”[5] Truss begins her book by admitting she is a “punctuation stickler.”
It’s tough being a stickler for punctuation these days. One almost dare not get up in the mornings. . . . Everywhere one looks, there are signs of ignorance and indifference. What about that film Two Weeks Notice? Guaranteed to give sticklers a very nasty turn, that was—its posters slung along the sides of buses in letters four feet tall, with no apostrophe in sight. . . . While we look in horror at a badly punctuated sign, the world carries on around us, blind to our plight.[6]
Truss goes on to explain that “the reason it’s worth standing up for punctuation . . . is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning. Punctuation herds words together, keeps others apart. Punctuation directs you how to read, in the same way musical notation directs a musician how to play.”[7]
The rest of the book humorously illustrates the pitfalls of improper use (or in some cases, non-use) of apostrophes, commas, colons and semicolons, and hyphens and dashes, providing guidance on how to use these marks properly and artfully.
5. Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.
I owe my familiarity with this book to a former student who served as my teaching assistant for a course on judicial writing. He suggested that as a first assignment for the students, I might assign the first chapter of the book. In that chapter, Pinker, a Harvard psychology professor who writes prolifically about language, cognition, and social relationships, “reverse engineers” four of his favorite passages of prose to show why he finds them so compelling.
The rest of the book elaborates on the qualities that Pinker believes make good writing good. Pinker emphasizes writing clearly, choosing words carefully, and following the conventional rules of writing most of the time (and breaking them when it makes sense to do so). The book is full of cartoons, charts, and examples that add a practical component to Pinker’s advice.
The following excerpt is one of my favorites, because even though it isn’t aimed at legal writers specifically, it is so descriptive of why much legal writing is hard to understand.
The curse of knowledge is the single best explanation I know of why good people write bad prose. It simply doesn’t occur to the writer that her readers don’t know what she knows—that they haven’t mastered the patois of her guild, can’t divine the missing steps that seem too obvious to mention, have no way to visualize a scene that to her is clear as day. And so she doesn’t bother to explain the jargon, or spell out the logic, or supply the necessary detail.[8]
I hope that you’ll add some of these books to your “to be read” stack; the insights they contain are valuable, and they’re all beautifully written. In the next column, I’ll suggest some excellent books about legal writing. Happy reading!
Laura Graham serves as Professor of Legal Writing and Director of Legal Analysis, Writing, and Research at Wake Forest University School of Law, where she has been teaching since 1999. She was the first recipient of the law school’s Graham Award for Excellence in Teaching Legal Research and Writing, which is named in her honor, and currently serves as immediate past president of the Association of Legal Writing Directors. Graham is a graduate of Wake Forest University and Wake Forest University School of Law.
[1] William Strunk, Jr. & E.B. White, The Elements of Style 75 (4th ed. 2019).
[2] William Zinsser, On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction 5-6 (25th anniv. ed. 2016). You can read more about Zinsser and his writings at https://www.williamzinsserwriter.com/.
[3] Id. at 7-8.
[4] Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life 32 (1994).
[5] Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (back cover review by Richard Lederer). You can learn more about the book at https://www.lynnetruss.com/eats-shoots-leaves.
[6] Id. at 2-3.
[7] Id. at 20.
[8] Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century 61 (2014). You can learn more about Pinker and his work at https://stevenpinker.com/.