You have likely spent some time practicing the nuts and bolts of good writing either in your high-school English class, but here’s a very brief overview of some key skills to help you craft a clear and elegant narrative–please consult these in addition to the linked readings below:
- Clarity—don’t make anyone read something twice; or, as Wallace Stegner wisely asserts: “Hard writing makes easy reading.” One great way to check for clarity is to read your essay out loud to yourself. If you get tripped up on anything, revision might be a good idea.
- Concision: give yourself more space than your competition. Strong professional narratives are written by those who have learned helpful strategies such as the use of active voice, the deployment of vivid verbs, and the reduction of prepositional phrases in their writing. Wait–that took me 33 words. Why not name that tune in 12 words and let my competition waste space? “Strong writers use active voice, deploy vivid verbs, and reduce prepositional phrases.” That’s better.
- Correctness: don’t let minor mistakes keep you from what your want to achieve.
- Control—take organizational control of the narrative: choose apt words; construct elegant, varied sentences; write unified and cohesive paragraphs; connect your paragraphs with meaningful transitional elements that help you tell a story: think of an architectural wonder vs. a stack of bland pancakes.
In later units, we will focus more on matters of style such as sentence variety and use of more dynamic sentence patterns. For now, do your best to learn from what you’re reading: if you like the way something sounds or looks, try modeling it in your own writing.
Required Readings:
- Concision
- Eliminating Words
- Changing Phrases
- Sentence Variation (note sub-readings on specific strategies on left column)
- Avoiding Common Pitfalls
- Paramedic Method
- Basic Writing Errors and How to Fix Them
Bonus: on Active and Passive voice (see nested sub-worksheets on this as well)