Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

by Roy Peter Clark

Cut any passage that does not suppor...

Cut the weakest quotations, anecdotes, and scenes to give greater po...

Cut any passage you have written to satisfy a tough teacher or editor rather ...

“Although they look like a first draft, they had already been rewritten and retyped… four or five times. With each rewrite I try to make what I have written tighter, stronger and more precise, eliminating every element that is not doing useful work.”

In his draft, Zinsser writes of the struggling reader: “My sympathies are entirely with him. He’s not so dumb. If the reader is lost, it is generally because the writer of the article has not been careful enough to keep him on the proper path.”

Adverbs that intensify rather than modify: just, certainly, entirely, extremely, completely, exactly.

Prepositional phrases that repeat the obvious: in the story, in the article, in the movie, in the city.

Phrases that grow on verbs: seems to, tends to, should ...

Abstract nouns that hide active verbs: consideration becomes considers; judgment becomes judges; ...

Restatements: a sultry, humid...

Prefer the simple over the technical.

Use shorter words, sentences, and paragraphs at points of complexity.

Too often, writers render complicated ideas with complicated prose,

Remember that clear prose is not just a product of sentence length and word choice. It derives first from a sense of purpose—a determination to inform.

The writer cannot make something clear until the difficult subject is clear in the writer’s head.

Give key words their space.

Do not repeat a distinctive word unless you intend a specific effect.

Play with words, even in serious stories. Choose words the average writer avoids but the average reader understands.

the reading vocabulary of the average citizen is larger than the writing vocabulary of the typical author.

All of us possess a reading vocabulary as big as a lake but draw from a writing vocabulary as small as a pond.

Get the name of the dog. Dig for the concrete and specific, details that appeal to the senses.

Pay attention to names. Interesting names attract the writer—and the reader.

Seek original images. Reject clichés and first-level creativity.

Using clichés, he argues, is a substitute for thinking, a form of automatic writing: “Prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house.” That last phrase is a fresh image, a model of originality.

When tempted by a tired phrase, such as “white as snow,” stop writing. Take what the practitioners of natural childbirth call a cleansing breath. Then jot down the old phrase on a piece of paper. Start scribbling alternatives: white as snow white as Snow White snowy white gray as city snow gray as the London sky white as the Queen of England

Under pressure, write it straight: “The mayor is keeping his plans secret.” If you fall back on the cliché, make sure there are no other clichés nearby.

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. In Writing to Deadline, Murray lists common blind spots: victims are always innocent, bureaucrats are lazy, politicians are corrupt, it’s lonely at the top, the suburbs are boring.

I have described one cliché of vision as first-l...

We also agreed that we preferred straight writing to the first pun that came to mind.

A simple shift of context turns the most common and overused expression (“Whatever” or “Oh, well”) into a pointed incantation.

Riff on the creative language of others. Make word lists, free-associate, be surprised by language.

Riffing on language will create wonderful effects you never intended. Which leads me to this additional strategy: always take credit for good writing you did not intend because you’ll be getting plenty of criticism for bad writing you did not mean either.

Set the pace with sentence length. Vary sentences to influence the reader’s speed.

Writers name three strategic reasons to slow the pace of a story: 1. To simplify the complex 2. To create suspense 3. To focus on the emotional truth

100 Ways to Improve Your Writing, Gary Provost

write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences.

Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just write words. Write music.

Vary the lengths of paragraphs. Go short or long—or make a turn—to match your intent.

“The paragraph is essentially a unit of thought, not of length,”

“The purpose of paragraphing is to give the reader a rest. The writer is saying to him: ‘Have you got that? If so, I’ll go on to the next point.’”

“There can be no general rule about the most suitable length for a paragraph,” writes Fowler. “A succession of very short ones is as irritating as very long ones are wearisome.”

complete with exposition, complication, resolution, and payoff at the end.

Choose the number of elements with a purpose in mind. One, two, three, or four: each sends a secret message to the reader.

Tom Wolfe once told William F. Buckley Jr. that if a writer wants the reader to think something the absolute truth, the writer should render it in the shortest possible sentence. Trust me.

So good writing is as easy as one, two, three—and four. In summary: • Use one for power. • Use two for comparison, contrast. • Use three for completeness, wholeness, roundness. • Use four or more to list, inventory, compile, and expand.

Know when to back off and when to show off. When the topic is most serious, understate; when least serious, exaggerate.

Most writers have at least two modes. One says, “Pay no attention to the writer behind the curtain. Look only at the world.” The other says, without inhibition, “Watch me dance. Aren’t I a clever fellow?” In rhetoric, these two modes have names. The first is called understatement. The second is called overstatement or hyperbole.

“If it sounds like writing,” writes hard-boiled novelist Elmore Leonard, “I rewrite it.”

Climb up and down the ladder of abstraction. Learn when to show, when to tell, and when to do both.

The ladder of abstraction remains one of the most useful models of thinking and writing ever invented.