Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for every Writier

  • A writer composes a sentence with subject and verb at the beginning, followed by other subordinate elements, creating what scholars call a right-branching sentence.
  • Subject and verb are often separated in prose, usually because we want to tell the reader something about the subject before we get to the verb. This delay, even for good reasons, risks confusing the reader.
  • If the writer wants to create suspense, or build tension, or make the reader wait and wonder, or join a journey of discovery, or hold on for dear life, he can save subject and verb of the main clause until later.
  • Put your best stuff near the beginning and at the end; hide weaker stuff in the middle. Queen, my lord, is dead.”
  • Use passive verbs to call attention to the receiver of the action.
  • "It is interesting to note that," or, "There are those occasions when" -- pompous indirections bred by the quest for an advanced degree.
  • Use of the passive voice contributes to the defense of the indefensible.
  • A rich writing vocabulary does not require big or fancy words. All of us possess a reading vocabulary as big as a lake but draw from a writing vocabulary as small as a pond.
  • Dig for the concrete and specific, details that appeal to the senses.
  • The details that leave a mark are those that stimulate the senses.
  • More deadly than clichés of language are what Donald Murray calls "clichés of vision," the narrow frames through which writers learn to see the world.
  • Victims are always innocent, bureaucrats are lazy, politicians are corrupt, it’s lonely at the top, the suburbs are boring.
  • Writers collect sharp phrases and colorful metaphors, sometimes for use. Think of how many words have been adapted from old technologies to describe tools of new media: we file, we browse, we surf, we link, we scroll, just to name a few.
  • Set the pace with sentence length.
  • Write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences.
  • The ladder of abstraction remains one of the most useful models of thinking and writing ever invented.
  • Build your work around a key question. Stories need an engine, a question that the action answers for the reader.
  • Good writers anticipate the reader’s questions and answer them.
  • Quality comes from revision.
  • Writing is a social activity.