Read 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing (Mentor Series) Online

Authors: Gary Provost

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BOOK: 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing (Mentor Series)

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1. Get Some Reference Books

2. Expand Your Vocabulary

3. Improve Your Spelling

4. Read

5. Take a Class

6. Eavesdrop

7. Research

8. Write in Your Head

9. Choose a Time and Place

1. Get Some Reference Books

It would be a shame to bring an entire writing project to a halt just because you didn’t know how to spell gyroscope or schnapps. So get a dictionary and keep it in the room where you write, no more than an arm’s length away. In fact, get two. Get a hard cover for its comprehensiveness and a paperback for convenience.

Also, get an encyclopedia. If you can’t afford a big set, get a single volume encyclopedia.

And get a thesaurus.
Thesaurus
means “treasury”; the thesaurus you buy will be a treasury of synonyms, words that are close in meaning to the one you want. It is a book that will lead you to that perfect word you know is loitering on the outskirts of your brain.

Roget’s Thesaurus
is arranged in two sections. The first section contains hundreds of clusters of related words and phrases. The second section is an index listing all the words in the first section alphabetically and telling you where they appear in that section.

Let’s say, for example, that in a letter you want to assure the owner of the company you work for that you will most certainly try to recover the four billion dollars you lost on the papier-mâché deal, but
recover
isn’t quite the word you want to use, and you’re not sure what is. So you whip out your pocket edition of
Roget’s Thesaurus,
turn to the index, and look up
recover.
There you’ll find the numbers 660, 775, and 790. You turn to cluster 660 and you find
recover
along with its cousins
rally, revive, pull through, reappear,
and others. If you don’t like anything you find there, you turn to the other numbers, and the thesaurus will lead you to
redeem, get back, salvage,
and so on.

You can find thesauruses in paperback and hard cover, and
Roget’s
is not the only one. I do not recommend the ones that are arranged solely in dictionary form. They are easier to use but only about twelve percent as useful.

After you have acquired a dictionary, an encyclopedia, and a thesaurus, you can acquire other reference books as time, taste, and money allow. Their importance depends largely on what sort of writing you do and how much.

Here are a few reference books you might find useful.

Finding Facts Fast
by Alden Todd (Ten Speed Press) is a good reference book for any writer who has to do research.

The
Statistical Abstract of the United States
will tell you how many tomatoes were grown in New Jersey last year and a good many other things you might not find anywhere else. You can order it from the U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402.

The Book of Lists
by David Wallechinsky, Irving Wallace, and Amy Wallace (Bantam) is fun to read and rich with useful information.

The Help Book
by J. L. Barkas (Scribner’s) will tell you who provides what services and where you can get more information.

The King’s English
by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler (Oxford University Press) is an excellent grammar text.

Words into Type
(Prentice-Hall) will guide you through every aspect of manuscript preparation, from matters of usage and grammar to matters of editing and proofreading.

2. Expand Your Vocabulary

Everybody has heard tips for improving vocabulary. Learn a new word in the morning and use it three times before sunset and it’s yours, etc. There are many books that will help you stretch your vocabulary. The best known one is
Thirty Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary
by Wilfred Funk and Norman Lewis (Funk and Wagnalls). Read that book or one like it.

But the most important vocabulary for the writer is not the one that will take in
uxorious
tomorrow and
soubrette
the next day. It’s the one he or she already has. For the writer of average intelligence and education, learning new words is much less important than learning to use easily the words he or she already knows.

Think for a minute. How many synonyms can you come up with for the noun plan?

There are
program, itinerary, scheme, design, agenda, outline,
and
blueprint.
If you concentrated for a minute, you might have come up with ten words that you already knew. But how many of them would have come easily to mind while you were writing a letter to the boss about your potentially lucrative new ... uh ... plan?

The only way to make your vocabulary more accessible is to use it. If you want all those short but interesting words waiting at the front of your brain when you need them, you must move them to the front of your brain before you need them.

Stop to think about other word possibilities when you write, and eventually they will come so quickly that you won’t have to stop.

Pause before you speak. Then insert some of those good but neglected words.

And when you drive home from work at night, pick out an object along the road and see how many synonyms you can think of before you pass it. There’s a house over there. But it’s also a dwelling, an abode, a building, a bungalow, perhaps, or maybe a cottage. It’s a home for somebody, it’s headquarters for a family, and it’s a shelter and a structure, too.

3. Improve Your Spelling

There aren’t many firm rules that apply to the spelling of English words. Mostly, good spelling is a matter of forming the right mental associations and developing an eye for words that look a little weird.

In the dictionary, look up any word that you’re not sure of. If you have been misspelling it, write it correctly ten times. Invent a visual image for the correct spelling. For example: The Sahara
desert
only has one s, like Sahara, but the
dessert
after a meal has a second s, like a second helping.

How will better spelling improve your writing? Well, for one thing, you won’t write
desert
when you mean
dessert.
More important, it will improve your writing by reducing the number of times you annoy the reader. A few misspelled words will jar the reader’s concentration, and a lot of misspelled words will wreck your credibility. Right or wrong, the reader will perceive you as ... well, stupid, to put it bluntly. If you don’t have the respect of the reader, your writing will not work.

Fifty of the Most Commonly Misspelled Words:

4. Read

If you are an a architect, you should certainly read architectural literature. If you are in computers, you must keep up with what’s being written about bits and bytes, demodulation and interlaced fields. Reading the books and trade magazines of your particular field will not only keep you informed, it will show you how experienced writers are turning the jargon and the complexities of your vocation into readable prose.

But no matter what your field of expertise, you should also read books, magazines, and newspapers designed for the general reader.

Though the daily paper contains much that is swill, it also contains some good writing. From it you can learn to write leanly, you can learn to get to the point, and you can learn to compress several facts into a single clear sentence.

If you read paperback detective novels and romances, you will discover how writers create curiosity, and build tension. You will also learn how to construct an event, a person, or a place with just a few well-chosen words.

Read major novels. You will see how words can be used to communicate subtleties and stir emotions, how words can be arranged one way to make you worry, another to make you laugh.

Read magazine articles and you will see how quotes are pared down from lengthy interviews until they contain nothing but the words that matter. Notice how opinions are supported by facts. Watch to see how the writer makes his points by calling on outside help such as scientific reports, quotes from books, surveys, etc.

Read. And listen to what you read. Listen for the sound of the language, the music. Note the punctuation, the spelling, the logical progression of information. And find the things that fail, also. Listen to how two similiar sounds close together can cause a disturbing noise in your head. Hear how the use of the wrong word wakes you from your reading spell. Be a critical reader, and look upon all that you read as a lesson in good writing.

5. Take a Class

If you don’t believe that good writing can be taught, you shouldn’t be reading this book. If you do believe good writing can be taught, you could benefit from a class.

You don’t have to sign up for a three-credit course at the local university. You can find a creative writing or English composition course in most adult education and extension programs.

There are specific courses designed for particular types of writers. For example, there are business writing courses that thoroughly cover the formal English required in business correspondence. A course in nonfiction writing will provide you with some research techniques that you wouldn’t get elsewhere. And a course in writing for television would be invaluable if that’s your interest, as there are many rules of form a scriptwriter must follow.

Generally, a writing course is as good or as bad as the teacher. Good teachers and bad teachers are found at all levels, so ask around.

Whether it’s a course at the local high school or a course at Harvard, in my opinion you should steer clear of any teacher who speaks with a British accent but has never been to England and any teacher who insists you must read
Moby Dick
before writing your first paper. Point yourself toward the eager, unpretentious teacher who is actually publishing stories, articles, and books.

“But why,” you ask, “should I take a writing class at all after reading a wonderful book like this?”

Good question. Three answers.