Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools

This book is a great resource for those working improving their writing.

I found the sections that are split into a set of tool boxes particularly helpful and recommend reading through this book and doing the suggested, practical exercises.

Key highlights:

• Begin sentences with subject-verb

• Order words for emphasis

• Activate your verbs

• Watch those adverbs

• Take it easy on the -ing words

• Prefer the simple over the technical

• Get the name of the dog

• Play with words, even in serious stories

• Control the pace with sentence and paragraph length

• Use dialogue as a form of action

• Write a mystery, not just a decoder ring

• Repeat key words and phrases deliberately

• Riff on the number three