Writing Tools - by Roy Peter Clark | Derek Sivers

Great advice on how to be a better writer. Unfortunately the author’s writing style is distracting. How strange to take advice from someone not taking it themselves. Like a drunk telling you not to drink. Right after reading this book I gave it a terrible rating because of that, but now I realize its points and advice (in my notes, below) are truly great. Begin sentences with subjects and verbs. Make meaning early. Place emphatic words in a sentence at the end. The 2-3-1 tool of emphasis: the most emphatic words or images go at the end, the next most emphatic at the beginning, and the least emphatic in the middle. The difference between a good adverb and a bad adverb? Compare “She smiled happily” and “She smiled sadly.” “Sadly” is good because it changes the meaning. It took several years and hundreds of readings before I noticed I had written “create” and “creating” in the same sentence. It was easy enough to cut “creating,” giving the stronger verb form its own space. Word territo

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• Akshay Ravoor