Writing Tools : 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

by Clark, Roy Peter

• ISBN13: 9780316014984
• ISBN10: 0316014982
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-09-01
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Summary

'Tools Not Rules' says Roy Peter Clark, vicepresident and senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, the esteemedschool for journalists and teachers of journalists. Clark believesthat everyone can write well with the help of a handful of usefultools that he has developed over decades of writing and teaching. Ifyou 'google' Roy Peter Clark, Writing Tools', you'll get anastonishing 1.25 million hits. That's because journalists everywhererely on his tips to help them write well every day - in fact he fieldsemails from around the world from grateful writers. 'Writing Tools'covers everything from the basics (Tool 5: Watch those Adverbs) tothe more complex (Tool 34: Turn your notebook into a camera) and usesmore than 300e xamples from literature and journalism to illustratethe concepts. For students, aspiring novelists and writers of memos,emails, PowerPoint presentations and love letters, here are 50indispensible, memorable and usable tools.

Author Biography

Roy Peter Clark is senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, one of the most prestigious schools for journalists in the world. He has taught writing at every level -- from schoolchildren to Pulitzer Prize-winning authors -- for more than forty years.

A writer who teaches and a teacher who writes, he has authored or edited nineteen books on writing and journalism, including The Art of X-Ray Reading, How to Write Short, Writing Tools, The Glamour of Grammar, and Help! for Writers. He lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he is considered a garage-band legend.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Nation of Writers	3	(6)
Part One. NUTS AND BOLTS	9	(48)
Begin sentences with subjects and verbs	11	(4)
Order words for emphasis	15	(4)
Activate your verbs	19	(4)
Be passive-aggressive	23	(4)
Watch those adverbs	27	(4)
Take it easy on the -ings	31	(5)
Fear not the long sentence	36	(5)
Establish a pattern, then give it a twist	41	(4)
Let punctuation control pace and space	45	(5)
Cut big, then small	50	(7)
Part Two. SPECIAL EFFECTS	57	(60)
Prefer the simple over the technical	59	(5)
Give key words their space	64	(4)
Play with words, even in serious stories	68	(4)
Get the name of the dog	72	(4)
Pay attention to names	76	(4)
Seek original images	80	(4)
Riff on the creative language of others	84	(4)
Set the pace with sentence length	88	(5)
Vary the lengths of paragraphs	93	(5)
Choose the number of elements with a purpose in mind	98	(5)
Know when to back off and when to show off	103	(4)
Climb up and down the ladder of abstraction	107	(5)
Tune your voice	112	(5)
Part Three. BLUEPRINTS	117	(76)
Work from a plan	119	(5)
Learn the difference between reports and stories	124	(4)
Use dialogue as a form of action	128	(5)
Reveal traits of character	133	(4)
Put odd and interesting things next to each other	137	(5)
Foreshadow dramatic events and powerful conclusions	142	(4)
To generate suspense, use internal cliffhangers	146	(4)
Build your work around a key question	150	(5)
Place gold coins along the path	155	(4)
Repeat, repeat, and repeat	159	(6)
Write from different cinematic angles	165	(4)
Report and write for scenes	169	(5)
Mix narrative modes	174	(5)
In short works, don't waste a syllable	179	(5)
Prefer archetypes to stereotypes	184	(4)
Write toward an ending	188	(5)
Part Four. USEFUL HABITS	193	(52)
Draft a mission statement for your work	195	(5)
Turn procrastination into rehearsal	200	(5)
Do your homework well in advance	205	(5)
Read for both form and content	210	(4)
Save string	214	(5)
Break long projects into parts	219	(4)
Take an interest in all crafts that support your work	223	(5)
Recruit your own support group	228	(4)
Limit self-criticism in early drafts	232	(4)
Learn from your critics	236	(4)
Own the tools of your craft	240	(5)
Afterword	245	(1)
Acknowledgments	246	(3)
Writing Tools Quick List	249	(6)
Index	255