F ellow opinion columnist Bret Stephens (hey what’s a Pulitzer between friends anyway?) recently used his column to offer a list of writing tips for the aspiring op-ed author a “summertime service for readers of the editorial pages who may wish someday to write for them.”
The esteemed New York Times commentator’s list is a very short one just 15 tips in all but I found it interesting and instructive to compare his thoughts with some of the comparable advice that the late great William Zinsser dispenses in his classic primer On Writing Well. Stephens’s opening counsel is that “every sentence has to count in grabbing the reader’s attention starting with the first ” since as a wise editor once observed “the easiest decision a reader can make is to stop reading.”
Personally I find it more efficient to ensure that some readers never even start warning them off with one of those dreaded “big words” or some abstruse cultural reference right at the outset. Why I reason considerately waste even a few precious moments of their time?
And Zinsser? He likewise writes that “your lead must capture the reader immediately and force him to keep reading. It must cajole him with freshness or novelty or paradox or humor or surprise or with an unusual idea or an interesting fact or a question. Anything will do as long as it nudges his curiosity and tugs at his sleeve.”
