How to improve writing (no. 87)
In today’s Mark Trail, some dialogue in need of improvement.
Twenty-eight tools
Luke Leighfield, writer, lists twenty-eight tools he uses to get things done.
“The art of scything”
The Elegance of the Hedgehog is a beautiful novel, and a perfect antidote to To the Lighthouse.
How to improve writing (no. 86)
A sentence from The New Yorker.
“One puny blog post”
Nancy at work.
How to improve writing (no. 85)
An odd sentence from The New Yorker.
How to improve writing (no. 84)
Some sentences I wrote.
How to improve writing (no. 83)
An added preposition makes things right.
Writing at the British Library
An exhibition from the British Library: Writing: Making Your Mark.
Defending the thesaurus
B.D. McClay defends the thesaurus: “The thesaurus is good, valuable, commendable, superb, actually.” What I notice though is that the defense offers not one example of a writer’s work being improved by means of a thesaurus.
How to improve writing (no. 82)
When I read the news, I don’t go looking for things. They present themselves, and my sentence-repair alarm goes off.
How to improve writing (no. 81)
Even “breaking news,” as they call it, can wait another minute for writer(s) to get the sentences right.
How to improve writing (no. 80)
Rewriting a garden-path sentence from The New Yorker.
Sharpied
Kellyanne Conway, as heard on CNN a little while ago, talking about Donald Trump’s preparation for his State of the Union address: “He Sharpied up a lot of the passages.”
Dreyer’s English
An Utterly Correct Guide: it’s as if matters of writing are turning into matters of etiquette: which fork — or word — to use.
A swipe at John D’Agata
John McPhee: “Is it wrong to alter a fact in order to improve the rhythm of your prose? I know so, and so do you. If you do that, you are by definition not writing nonfiction.”
Less reading, more “writing”
To my mind, reading and writing are just things one does in a college class. As students’ language skills decline, assigning less reading and more “writing” solves nothing.
How to improve writing (no. 79)
”We serve relentlessly with our community until all can thrive in each stage of life.” Yikes!
Writing and money
“Writing has never been a lucrative career choice, but a recent study by the Authors Guild, a professional organization for book writers, shows that it may not even be a livable one anymore”: from a New York Times article about whether it pays to be a writer.
“Author”
Donald Trump, whose name is on ghostwritten books, defends his ability as a writer.
“Lane Greene on Editing”
An especially good episode of the BBC podcast Word of Mouth : “Lane Greene on Editing.”
How to improve writing (no. 78)
A revision from Harold Evans’s Do I Make Myself Clear? A Practical Guide to Writing Well in the Modern Age, revised again.
“The deepest motive for writing”
Richard Lanham: “Motive has always been the question of questions for Freshman Composition. Perhaps more success might flow from assuming, paradoxically, that the deepest motive for writing is not communication at all but the pleasures of writing for its own sake.”
Writing and speech
Richard Lanham: “Writing’s advantage, as a presentation of self, is not that it allows us to adopt the mannerisms of speech but that it allows us to adopt the tempo of speech without its hesitant waste.”
“Slow Reading”
Richard Lanham: “Every course in composition ought to be a course in Slow Reading.”
How to improve writing (no. 77)
A Washington Post headline: “Kavanaugh arrives wounded, as is the Supreme Court’s image.”
Strunk and White mattering
“Strunk & White was the first text for millions that persuaded reluctant writers that the writing craft was not an act of magic, but the applied use of both rules and tools”: Roy Peter Clark writes about “Why Strunk & White still matters (or matter) (or both).”
Commercialese and its discontents
Eric Partridge: “It is easy, far too easy, to write a letter in which occur all the well-worn terms, all the long-winded phrases, all the substitutes for thinking.”
Like father, like daughter
Over the weekend, my daughter Rachel read a piece of journalism that she deemed poorly written.
Imitation and parody
Eudora Welty and Dick Cavett talk about imitation and parody.