Roy peter Clark has written a list of 50 tools to help your writing. It is taken from the the website on the poynter institute and is for writers and journalists. Roy states that these are tools and are not rules. He also says the following:
- These are tools and not rules.
- It will not help to apply these tools at once.
- You will become handy with these tools over time.
- You are already using many of these tools without knowing it.
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The whole website is fantastic and a great read for those of you who would like to write better. Obviosusly i am still putting it into practice.
- Writing Tool #1: Branch to the Right
- Writing Tool #2: Use Strong Verbs
- Writing Tool #3: Beware of Adverbs
- Writing Tool #4: Period As a Stop Sign
- Writing Tool #5: Observe Word Territory
- Writing Tool #6: Play with Words
- Writing Tool #7: Dig for the Concrete and Specific
- Writing Tool #8: Seek Original Images
- Writing Tool #9: Prefer Simple to Technical
- Writing Tool #10: Recognize Your Story's Roots
- Writing Tool #11 Back Off or Show Off
- Writing Tool #12: Control the Pace
- Writing Tool #13: Show and Tell
- Writing Tool #14: Interesting Names
- Writing Tool #15: Reveal Character Traits
- Writing Tool #16: Odd and Interesting Things
- Writing Tool #17: The Number of Elements
- Writing Tool #18: Internal Cliffhangers
- Writing Tool #19: Tune Your Voice
- Writing Tool #20: Narrative Opportunities
- Writing Tool #21: Quotes and Dialogue
- Writing Tool #22: Get Ready
- Writing Tool #23: Place Gold Coins Along the Path
- Writing Tool #24: Name the Big Parts
- Writing Tool #25: Repeat
- Writing Tool #26: Fear Not the Long Sentence
- Writing Tool #27: Riffing for Originality
- Writing Tool #28: Writing Cinematically
- Writing Tool #29: Report for Scenes
- Writing Tool #30: Write Endings to Lock the Box
- Writing Tool #31: Parallel Lines
- Writing Tool #32: Let It Flow
- Writing Tool #33: Rehearsal
- Writing Tool #34: Cut Big, Then Small
- Writing Tool #35: Use Punctuation
- Writing Tool #36: Write A Mission Statement for Your Story
- Writing Tool #37: Long Projects
- Writing Tool #38: Polish Your Jewels
- Writing Tool #39: The Voice of Verbs
- Writing Tool #40: The Broken Line
- Writing Tool #41: X-Ray Reading
- Writing Tool #42: Paragraphs
- Writing Tool #43: Self-criticism
- Writing Tool #44: Save String
- Writing Tool #45: Foreshadow
- Writing Tool #46: Storytellers, Start Your Engines
- Writing Tool #47: Collaboration
- Writing Tool #48: Create An Editing Support Group
- Writing Tool #49: Learn from Criticism
- Writing Tool #50: The Writing Process
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