Use $5, not $50 Words: Good Writing in the Age of ChatGPT
“Use $5, not $50 words,” said my journalism professor, referring to the word “assimilation” in my story about Asian-American comedians in New York City’s Chinatown.
“This $50 word will even turn off educated readers,” my professor explained. “You are writing a light-hearted piece about comedians, but at times it sounds like a university lecture.” I scratched my head and heard my nervous laughter filling his office. “Your reporting is outstanding,” he said, before pinpointing with surgical precision that my stories “read like the introduction to a PhD dissertation.”
I nodded at my professor’s clever and brutally honest assessment of my writing style. As an academic specializing in East Asian history, I was accustomed to flashing my nerdy discourse on paper to impress my audience, adorning my articles with GRE words and theoretical concepts that few outside the academic bubble would understand or care about. At the end of our meeting, my professor suggested, “Why don’t you show your writing to William Zinsser?”
William Zinsser, the author of On Writing Well, was a rockstar among journalists of my generation. His book had sold millions of copies and served as a bible for aspiring nonfiction writers. My school had included the book’s 2001 edition in the orientation packet for all journalism students. In his welcoming remarks, our associate dean waved the book in the air and told us, “If you wish to become a writer with a capital ‘W,’ read this book.” The school even hired Zinsser as our writing coach.
When I first met William Zinsser in early November 2004, he was already in his 80s. He looked frail and spoke with long pauses, but his mind still worked like a sharp razor blade. I showed him a piece of personal journalism about my experiences at a Miao ethnic festival in southwest China. “How can I make this story sound more human and attractive?” I asked, not sure about his reaction to my writing style.
Zinsser began plowing through my piece. “Your writing seems a bit constipated,” he said. “Shed all the adjectives. They do nothing but clutter your sentences.” He grabbed a pencil and began crossing out all the adjectives. After trimming off the distracting decorations, he moved on to the title, “Miao festivities in Southwest China Celebrate Ethnic Minority Culture.” He nodded disapprovingly. “You’re not going to attract any readers with a title like this. You’ll put them to sleep.”
He then smiled like a teenager getting ready for a naughty prank. “One of the highlights of your piece is your exchange with Tammy about enforcing birth control among the Miao peasants in the village,” he noted. “Let’s think of a title based on that conversation.”
Tammy was the daughter of a local cadre in southwest China. She attended the festivities that day to help her mother trumpet the official Communist Party line about the economic benefits of contraception to the local peasants. At the time, the Chinese government had stepped up its efforts in limiting the number of children in the countryside to two per family.
My encounter with Tammy was somewhat awkwardly seductive. Before I could introduce myself, she asked in perfect English, “Sir, would you like a condom?”, and handed me a box of cheap condoms. Her mother watched attentively and applauded her sense of humor. Playing along, I replied, “I appreciate your hospitality. Is it a local custom to greet outsiders with such a special gift?”
As William Zinsser read my exchange with Tammy aloud, he scrawled a new title at the top of the page, “Sir, would you like a condom?” It sounded like a headline splashed across a sensationalist tabloid. “What if my readers think that I’m writing about a visit to a brothel instead of an ethnic minority festival?” I asked, cracking up. But Zinsser convinced me otherwise. This headline would not only pique the curiosity of the average reader but also encapsulate the problematic enforcement of birth control among the ethnic minorities in the countryside. With such a spicy title, my piece would certainly catch the eye of even the most distracted reader.
My sessions with William Zinsser over the course of the year went far beyond enlivening my writing. Infected by his light spirit, I tried to inject a healthy dose of color and humor into my stories. I learned not just to smell the roses, but also to share their fragrance with my audience. At the same time, my writing turned me into a more approachable person.
Even though I don’t consider myself a writer with a capital “W,” I try to pass along Zinsser’s spirit to my students. This past weekend, for instance, I searched for some clues on how to handle AI-assisted writing in my classes. I grabbed On Writing Well off my bookshelf. How would Zinsser deal with ChatGPT? Should we surrender to the temptation of using it in our writing? These are some of the uneasy questions lurking in my mind. Zinsser passed away almost a decade ago, but I decided once again to turn to him for advice.
As I flipped through his introduction to the 2001 edition, I could almost hear Zinsser talking to me, the same way he did during my time at Columbia journalism school:
I don’t know what still newer electronic marvels are waiting just around the corner to make writing twice as easy and twice as fast in the next 25 years. But I do know they won’t make writing twice as good. That will still require plain old hard work-clear thinking-and the plain old tools of the English language.
Zinsser, probably aware of the doubts that future generations would face with the advent of new technology, laid down in plain and elegant words the essence of writing:
…two of the most important qualities that this book will go in search of: humanity and warmth.
At least for the foreseeable future, I am convinced that Zinsser’s On Writing Well will outlive any technological advances.
