Gardeners have pruning shears. Sculptors have chisels. Chefs have spices, and writers have these six books to help them prune, shape & spice up their work!
STRUNK & WHITE'S:
THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE
By William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White
It's older than a vintage wedding dress with poofy sleeves and dangling beads, but the advice is as sleek as high-heel patent leather shoes on today's modern woman!
Each section, and there are five, contain clear, simple rules that make for better sentence structure, thus better paragraphs, better stories! Beneath each rule, there are examples of sentences that break the rule and explanations on how to improve them.
THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE
By William Strunk Jr. & E.B. White
It's older than a vintage wedding dress with poofy sleeves and dangling beads, but the advice is as sleek as high-heel patent leather shoes on today's modern woman!
Each section, and there are five, contain clear, simple rules that make for better sentence structure, thus better paragraphs, better stories! Beneath each rule, there are examples of sentences that break the rule and explanations on how to improve them.
TURNED-DOWN PAGE CORNERS:
Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, noncommittal language.
Omit needless words.
Write with nouns and verbs.
Avoid tame, colorless, hesitating, noncommittal language.
Omit needless words.
Write with nouns and verbs.
QUOTABLE:
"If one is to write, one must believe--in the truth and worth of the scrawl, in the ability of the reader to receive and decode the message. No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence, or whose attitude is patronizing."
"If one is to write, one must believe--in the truth and worth of the scrawl, in the ability of the reader to receive and decode the message. No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence, or whose attitude is patronizing."
A WRITER'S NOTEBOOK: UNLOCKING THE WRITER WITHIN YOU
By Ralph Fletcher
This is written for kids, ages 8 and up. But the suggestions within are invaluable to a writer of any age who desires to infuse realistic dialogue, beautiful imagery, and specific detail into their work.
It's for those who need "seed ideas" for their writing, for those who carry around a writer's notebook (or laptop), wondering, "What to include?" Fletcher explains how his notebook entries came to birth and reprints the entries of numerous young people.
TURNED-DOWN PAGE CORNERS:
When something stirs within, take out the notebook and write.
When images or memories haunt, take out the notebook and write.
When the "small things" intrigue the senses, take out the notebook and write.
QUOTABLE:
"A writer's notebook is like that ditch--an empty space you dig in your busy life, a space that will fill up with all sorts of fascinating little creatures. If you dig it, they will come. You'll be amazed by what you catch there."
By Ralph Fletcher
This is written for kids, ages 8 and up. But the suggestions within are invaluable to a writer of any age who desires to infuse realistic dialogue, beautiful imagery, and specific detail into their work.
It's for those who need "seed ideas" for their writing, for those who carry around a writer's notebook (or laptop), wondering, "What to include?" Fletcher explains how his notebook entries came to birth and reprints the entries of numerous young people.
TURNED-DOWN PAGE CORNERS:
When something stirs within, take out the notebook and write.
When images or memories haunt, take out the notebook and write.
When the "small things" intrigue the senses, take out the notebook and write.
QUOTABLE:
"A writer's notebook is like that ditch--an empty space you dig in your busy life, a space that will fill up with all sorts of fascinating little creatures. If you dig it, they will come. You'll be amazed by what you catch there."
DESCRIPTION
By Monica Wood
Wood includes nine chapters that discuss description: description and forward motion, description and dialogue, description and point of view, description and style, description and setting. The advice "show don't tell" is explained with great clarity.
The chapter Tips and Tricks is chock-full of advice including the likes of circling adverbs and adjectives with a purpose to jazzing up blasé prose. The how-to aspect of this book includes entries that turn okay-written passages into wowsie-kapowsie ones. Wood makes beautiful writing seem a keystroke away.
TURNED-DOWN PAGE CORNERS:
Avoid details that call to mind anybody or anyplace and use ones that call to mind somebody and someplace.
Descriptions of weather should be fresh and necessary rather than banal and irrelevant.
Creating a first-person narrator is a special joy as long as you remember that every sprig of description, every observation, belongs to that narrator alone.
Gestural pauses within dialogue--full-sentence interruptions--are descriptions that enhance the scene and can often be used to replace dialogue tags.
QUOTABLE:
"Description is not so much an element of fiction as its very essence; it is the creation of mental images that allow readers to fully experience a story."
By Monica Wood
Wood includes nine chapters that discuss description: description and forward motion, description and dialogue, description and point of view, description and style, description and setting. The advice "show don't tell" is explained with great clarity.
The chapter Tips and Tricks is chock-full of advice including the likes of circling adverbs and adjectives with a purpose to jazzing up blasé prose. The how-to aspect of this book includes entries that turn okay-written passages into wowsie-kapowsie ones. Wood makes beautiful writing seem a keystroke away.
TURNED-DOWN PAGE CORNERS:
Avoid details that call to mind anybody or anyplace and use ones that call to mind somebody and someplace.
Descriptions of weather should be fresh and necessary rather than banal and irrelevant.
Creating a first-person narrator is a special joy as long as you remember that every sprig of description, every observation, belongs to that narrator alone.
Gestural pauses within dialogue--full-sentence interruptions--are descriptions that enhance the scene and can often be used to replace dialogue tags.
QUOTABLE:
"Description is not so much an element of fiction as its very essence; it is the creation of mental images that allow readers to fully experience a story."
EATS, SHOOTS & LEAVES
By Lynne Truss
Truss, with a Briton's wit, sarcastic humor, and historical anecdotes, shares with writers a "zero tolerance approach to punctuation." The advice--written in plain English (the King's, that is)--will leave commas, apostrophes, semi-colons, hyphens, punctuation marks, dashes, ellipses quaking into sentence submission.
Apply these easy-to-understand rules and manuscripts everywhere will shout, "Bring on the punctuation-coppers!"
TURNED-DOWN PAGE CORNERS:
Punctuation can change the meaning, sometimes with a consequential difference:
A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
Protect the apostrophe from misuse.
The comma marks the places where the reader can--as it were--place an elegant two-pronged fork and cleanly lift out a section of the sentence, leaving no obvious damage to the whole.
QUOTABLE:
"We have a language that is full of ambiguities; we have a way of expressing ourselves that is often complex and allusive, poetic and modulated; all our thoughts can be rendered with absolute clarity if we bother to put the right dots and squiggles between the words in the right places."
By Lynne Truss
Truss, with a Briton's wit, sarcastic humor, and historical anecdotes, shares with writers a "zero tolerance approach to punctuation." The advice--written in plain English (the King's, that is)--will leave commas, apostrophes, semi-colons, hyphens, punctuation marks, dashes, ellipses quaking into sentence submission.
Apply these easy-to-understand rules and manuscripts everywhere will shout, "Bring on the punctuation-coppers!"
TURNED-DOWN PAGE CORNERS:
Punctuation can change the meaning, sometimes with a consequential difference:
A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
Protect the apostrophe from misuse.
The comma marks the places where the reader can--as it were--place an elegant two-pronged fork and cleanly lift out a section of the sentence, leaving no obvious damage to the whole.
QUOTABLE:
"We have a language that is full of ambiguities; we have a way of expressing ourselves that is often complex and allusive, poetic and modulated; all our thoughts can be rendered with absolute clarity if we bother to put the right dots and squiggles between the words in the right places."
WOE IS I
By Patricia O'Conner
Grammar is made easy with O'Conner's humorous poems, easy-to-remember rules, and commonsense tips. Technical jargon is put aside--"No heavy lifting, no assembly required." Her pages hold laugh-out-loud advice that helps a writer see why a sentence may not be grammatically correct.
Writing will flourish grammatically after reading chapters with titles and subtitles like Plurals Before Swine; The Possessives and the Possessed; Therapy for Pronoun Anxiety; Do Clichés Deserve to Die?; The Compleat [this is not a misspelling] Dangler-A Fish Out of Water, and more.
TURNED-DOWN PAGE CORNERS:
Commas, which cut the fat,
Go with which, never with that.
Danglers are like mushrooms in the woods--they're hard to see at first, but once you get the hang of it they're easy to find.
Put descriptions close to the words they describe.
The verb is the business end of the sentence, the sentence's reason for being.
QUOTABLE:
"The simplest and clearest writing has the greatest power to delight, surprise, inform, and move the reader."
By Patricia O'Conner
Grammar is made easy with O'Conner's humorous poems, easy-to-remember rules, and commonsense tips. Technical jargon is put aside--"No heavy lifting, no assembly required." Her pages hold laugh-out-loud advice that helps a writer see why a sentence may not be grammatically correct.
Writing will flourish grammatically after reading chapters with titles and subtitles like Plurals Before Swine; The Possessives and the Possessed; Therapy for Pronoun Anxiety; Do Clichés Deserve to Die?; The Compleat [this is not a misspelling] Dangler-A Fish Out of Water, and more.
TURNED-DOWN PAGE CORNERS:
Commas, which cut the fat,
Go with which, never with that.
Danglers are like mushrooms in the woods--they're hard to see at first, but once you get the hang of it they're easy to find.
Put descriptions close to the words they describe.
The verb is the business end of the sentence, the sentence's reason for being.
QUOTABLE:
"The simplest and clearest writing has the greatest power to delight, surprise, inform, and move the reader."
WRITING IRRESISTIBLE KIDLIT
By Mary Kole
Kole has crafted the ultimate guide to crafting fiction for young adult and middle grade readers. Her title contains nine hefty chapters that include both general information regarding the kidlit market and kidlit career as well as specific information regarding plot, character, POV, backstory, and theme.
To arm writers with ways to improve their craft, chapters contain a generous dose of well-written passages from published books, comments from authors and editors on what works well for them, and recommended readings. Go-try-this exercises are included to help writers ply their craft.
TURNED-DOWN PAGE CORNERS:
Aim to tell authentic stories with authority.
Like a detective looking over a crime scene, you must connect dots, look under every piece of story to find hot spots, and see your plot more of a web than a straight line.
Use your spotlight powers to draw attention where you want it and minimize the reader's investment in things that don't really matter. Sometimes a sandwich is just a sandwich.
One of the most important things you can do when you introduce a character is to show your readers what she wants.
QUOTABLE:
"Never forget: Novels are written one word at a time, and every word is a choice."
By Mary Kole
Kole has crafted the ultimate guide to crafting fiction for young adult and middle grade readers. Her title contains nine hefty chapters that include both general information regarding the kidlit market and kidlit career as well as specific information regarding plot, character, POV, backstory, and theme.
To arm writers with ways to improve their craft, chapters contain a generous dose of well-written passages from published books, comments from authors and editors on what works well for them, and recommended readings. Go-try-this exercises are included to help writers ply their craft.
TURNED-DOWN PAGE CORNERS:
Aim to tell authentic stories with authority.
Like a detective looking over a crime scene, you must connect dots, look under every piece of story to find hot spots, and see your plot more of a web than a straight line.
Use your spotlight powers to draw attention where you want it and minimize the reader's investment in things that don't really matter. Sometimes a sandwich is just a sandwich.
One of the most important things you can do when you introduce a character is to show your readers what she wants.
QUOTABLE:
"Never forget: Novels are written one word at a time, and every word is a choice."
