Several Short Sentences About Writing

by Verlyn Klinkenborg

Many people assume there’s an inherent conflict between creativity and a critical, analytic awareness of the medium you work in. They assume that the creative artist works unconsciously And that knowing too much about matters like grammar and syntax diminishes or blunts creativity. This is nonsense. You don’t need to be an expert in grammar and syntax to write well. But you do need to know the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. Between active and passive constructions. The relation between a pronoun and its antecedent. All the parts of speech. The different verb tenses. The nature of participles and their role as modifiers. The subtleties of prepositions—the hardest part of speech even for native speakers of English. You need a toolbox of rhetorical devices, like irony, hyperbole, And the various kinds of analogy. You need an ever-growing vocabulary—and with it the awareness that most words carry several meanings.

Things to learn :p