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Writing Tools 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer

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ISBN-10: 0316014982

ISBN-13: 9780316014984

Edition: 2006

Authors: Roy Peter Clark

List price: $19.99
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Description:

'Tools Not Rules', written by Roy Peter Clark, features 50 essential tips that writers of all ages and levels can use every day.
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Book details

List price: $19.99
Copyright year: 2006
Publisher: Little Brown & Company
Publication date: 9/1/2006
Binding: Hardcover
Pages: 272
Size: 5.75" wide x 8.50" long x 1.00" tall
Weight: 0.836
Language: English

Roy Peter Clark was born in 1948 in New York City and raised on Long Island. He graduated from Providence College in Rhode Island with a degree in English and earned a PhD from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He was hired by St. Petersburg Times in 1977 to become a writing coach. He worked with the American Society of Newspaper Editors to improve newspaper writing nationwide. He was soon elected a distinguished service member which was a rare honor for a journalist who has never edited a newspaper. He has nurtured Pulitzer Prize winning writers such as Thomas French and Diana Sugg. He has worked full-time at The Poynter Institute starting in 1979 as director of the writing…    

Introduction: A Nation of Writers
Nuts and Bolts
Begin sentences with subjects and verbs
Order words for emphasis
Activate your verbs
Be passive-aggressive
Watch those adverbs
Take it easy on the -ings
Fear not the long sentence
Establish a pattern, then give it a twist
Let punctuation control pace and space
Cut big, then small
Special Effects
Prefer the simple over the technical
Give key words their space
Play with words, even in serious stories
Get the name of the dog
Pay attention to names
Seek original images
Riff on the creative language of others
Set the pace with sentence length
Vary the lengths of paragraphs
Choose the number of elements with a purpose in mind
Know when to back off and when to show off
Climb up and down the ladder of abstraction
Tune your voice
Blueprints
Work from a plan
Learn the difference between reports and stories
Use dialogue as a form of action
Reveal traits of character
Put odd and interesting things next to each other
Foreshadow dramatic events and powerful conclusions
To generate suspense, use internal cliffhangers
Build your work around a key question
Place gold coins along the path
Repeat, repeat, and repeat
Write from different cinematic angles
Report and write for scenes
Mix narrative modes
In short works, don't waste a syllable
Prefer archetypes to stereotypes
Write toward an ending
Useful Habits
Draft a mission statement for your work
Turn procrastination into rehearsal
Do your homework well in advance
Read for both form and content
Save string
Break long projects into parts
Take an interest in all crafts that support your work
Recruit your own support group
Limit self-criticism in early drafts
Learn from your critics
Own the tools of your craft
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Writing Tools Quick List
Index