“On Writing Well” Takeaways & Basketball

Current read, “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser. I chose this book as I now write more and I want to be good (reason #2).

What does this book on writing well have to do with basketball? Kinda nothing, until I found myself drawing parallels between writing and basketball.

Here are a few excerpts from the book related to basketball;

• “Just because they’re writing fluently doesn’t mean they’re writing well.” | Just because they play basketball doesn’t mean they’re playing well.

• “The writer is making them work too hard, and they will look for one who is better at the craft.” | Coaches’ lack of effective communication and teaching may lead to player turnover.

• “The point is that you have to strip your writing down before you can build it back up. You must know what the essential tools are and what job they were designed to do.” | Coaches – what are your essential tools, and philosophies and what are they designed to do/achieve 

• “Eliminate elements that aren’t doing work.” | This could be anything – personnel, offensive and defensive sets, routines, etc. 

• “You learn to write by writing.” | You learn to coach by coaching.

• “Not two thoughts, or five—just one. So decide what single point you want to leave in the reader’s mind.” | Narrow down one thing to focus on in a practice, drill, team meeting, etc.

So far I’m enjoying this book. I did not intend to relate what I’m reading back to basketball however, it is interesting to see concepts “On Writing Well” relate to basketball.