My thanks go to all the dedicated and creative workers at Little, Brown under the leadership of publisher Michael Pietsch (pronounced “peach”): Sophie Cottrell, associate publisher; Heather Rizzo, publicity director; Bonnie Hannah, publicist; Mario Pulice, art director; Marilyn Doof, production manager; Meryl Sussman Levavi, freelance designer; Marie Salter, copyeditor; and Caitlin Earley. In its care of me, my publisher has been high minded and innovative, with a long-term vision for the life of a writing book.
Finally, I do believe that writing is a social activity, so thanks go to those closest to me: Pegie and Stuart Adam; Tom French and his sons; Kelly McBride and her family; the Morse family; Joe and Diane Tonelli; Sharon and Jared Mellon; my mother-in-law, Jeannette Major; my brothers, Vincent and Ted; my mother (and first editor), Shirley Clark; my daughters, Alison, Emily, and Lauren; my wife, Karen Clark; and, of course, with greatest affection, my Jack Russell terrier—whose name is Rex.
WRITING TOOLS QUICK LIST
Use this quick list of writing tools as a handy reference. Copy it and keep it in your wallet or journal, or near your desk or keyboard. Share it and add to it.
Part One: Nuts and Bolts
1. Begin sentences with subjects and verbs.
Make meaning early, then let weaker elements branch to the right.
2. Order words for emphasis.
Place strong words at the beginning and at the end.
3. Activate your verbs.
Strong verbs create action, save words, and reveal the players.
4. Be passive-aggressive.
Use passive verbs to showcase the “victim” of action.
5. Watch those adverbs.
Use them to change the meaning of the verb.
6. Take it easy on the -ings.
Prefer the simple present or past.
7. Fear not the long sentence.
Take the reader on a journey of language and meaning.
8. Establish a pattern, then give it a twist.
Build parallel constructions, but cut across the grain.
9. Let punctuation control pace and space.
Learn the rules, but realize you have more options than you think.
10. Cut big, then small.
Prune the big limbs, then shake out the dead leaves.
Part Two: Special Effects
11. Prefer the simple over the technical.
Use shorter words, sentences, and paragraphs at points of complexity.
12. Give key words their space.
Do not repeat a distinctive word unless you intend a specific effect.
13. Play with words, even in serious stories.
Choose words the average writer avoids but the average reader understands.
14. Get the name of the dog.
Dig for the concrete and specific, details that appeal to the senses.
15. Pay attention to names.
Interesting names attract the writer—and the reader.
16. Seek original images.
Reject clichés and first-level creativity.
17. Riff on the creative language of others.
Make word lists, free-associate, be surprised by language.
18. Set the pace with sentence length.
Vary sentences to influence the reader’s speed.
19. Vary the lengths of paragraphs.
Go short or long—or make a turn—to match your intent.
20. Choose the number of elements with a purpose in mind.
One, two, three, or four: each sends a secret message to the reader.
21. Know when to back off and when to show off.
When the topic is most serious, understate; when least serious, exaggerate.
22. Climb up and down the ladder of abstraction.
Learn when to show, when to tell, and when to do both.
23. Tune your voice.
Read stories aloud.
Part Three: Blueprints
24. Work from a plan.
Index the big parts of your work.
25. Learn the difference between reports and stories.
Use one to render information, the other to render experience.
26. Use dialogue as a form of action.
Dialogue advances narrative; quotes delay it.
27. Reveal traits of character.
Show character-istics through scenes, details, and dialogue.
28. Put odd and interesting things next to each other.
Help the reader learn from contrast.
29. Foreshadow dramatic events and powerful conclusions.
Plant important clues early.
30. To generate suspense, use internal cliffhangers.
To propel readers, make them wait.
31. Build your work around a key question.
Stories need an engine, a question that the action answers for the reader.
32. Place gold coins along the path.
Reward the reader with high points, especially in the middle.
33. Repeat, repeat, and repeat.
Purposeful repetition links the parts.
34. Write from different cinematic angles.
Turn your notebook into a camera.
35. Report and write for scenes.
Then align them in a meaningful sequence.
36. Mix narrative modes.
Combine story forms using the broken line.
37. In short works, don’t waste a syllable.
Shape short writing with wit and polish.
38. Prefer archetypes to stereotypes.
Use subtle symbols, not crashing cymbals.
39. Write toward an ending.
Help readers close the circle of meaning.
Part Four: Useful Habits
40. Draft a mission statement for your work.
To sharpen your learning, write about your writing.
41. Turn procrastination into rehearsal.
Plan and write it first in your head.
42. Do your homework well in advance.
Prepare yourself for the expected—and unexpected.
43. Read for both form and content.
Examine the machinery beneath the text.
44. Save string.
For big projects, save scraps others would toss.
45. Break long projects into parts.
Then assemble the pieces into something whole.
46. Take an interest in all crafts that support your work.
To do your best, help others do their best.
47. Recruit your own support group.
Create a corps of helpers for feedback.
48. Limit self-criticism in early drafts.
Turn it loose during revision.
49. Learn from your critics.
Tolerate even unreasonable criticism.
50. Own the tools of your craft.
Build a writing workbench to store your tools.
Part Five: Bonus Tools
51. Take advantage of narrative numbers.
Let the clock tick or the room number show.
52. Express your best thought in the shortest sentence.
A short sentence has the ring of gospel truth.
53. Match your diction to your writing purpose.
Words should fit tone, theme, content, and audience.
54. Create a mosaic of detail to reveal character.
Piece together habits, gestures, and preferences into a vision of life on the page.
55. Look for the “inciting incident” to kick-start your story.
Attend to the moment that changes a day—or a life.
For more information on Writing Tools, see the Web sites for the Poynter Institute (www.poynter.org/writingtools) and Little, Brown and Company (www.littlebrown.com). To purchase a copy of Writing Tools, visit your local or online bookstore.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
By some accounts, Roy Peter Clark is America’s writing coach, devoted to creating a nation of writers. A PhD in medieval literature, he is widely considered
the most influential writing teacher in the rough-and-tumble world of newspaper journalism. With a deep background in traditional media, Clark has illuminated the discussion of writing on the Internet. He has gained fame by teaching writing to children and has nurtured Pulitzer Prize–winning authors such as Thomas French and Diana K. Sugg. He is a teacher who writes and a writer who teaches.
For more than three decades, Clark has taught writing at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Florida, considered among the most prominent such teaching institutions in the world. He graduated from Providence College with a degree in English and earned his PhD from Stony Brook University.
In 1977 he was hired by the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times) as one of America’s first writing coaches and worked with the American Society of Newspaper Editors to improve newspaper writing nationwide. He has taught writing at news organizations, schools, businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies in more than forty states and on five continents.
Among his clients at Poynter: the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Public Radio, USA Today, CNN, Gannett, Microsoft, IBM, the US Department of Health and Human Services, Disney, AAA, the World Bank, and countless colleges and universities. He has appeared on Today and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Clark has authored or edited eighteen books about writing, reading, language, and journalism. Humorist Dave Barry has said of him: “Roy Peter Clark knows more about writing than anybody I know who is not currently dead.” He plays keyboard in a rock band. He lives with his family in St. Petersburg, Florida.
ALSO BY ROY PETER CLARK
The Art of X-Ray Reading: How the Secrets of 25 Great
Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing
How to Write Short: Word Craft for Fast Times
Help! For Writers: 210 Solutions to the
Problems Every Writer Faces
The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and
Mystery of Practical English
ALSO BY ROY PETER CLARK
The Art of X-Ray Reading: How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing
“Clark… excavates a gold mine of artistic strategies for great writing.… With lively, colorful writing and inspired practical advice, this guide earns a spot along with Clark’s Writing Tools as essential reading for writers.”
—Kirkus (starred review)
“It’s a delightful read and an illuminating method for beginner or pro.”
—Janet Burroway, author of Writing Fiction and Losing Tim
How to Write Short: Word Craft for Fast Times
“It both instructs and delights, in equal measure. On every page there is some useful advice and an amusing observation or illustration. Read this book!”
—Ben Yagoda, author of How to Not Write Bad
“How to Write Short comes at the perfect time and enshrines Roy Peter Clark as America’s best writing coach. This book should be on every serious writer’s shelf.”
—Tampa Bay Times
Help! For Writers: 210 Solutions to the Problems Every Writer Faces
“Writing instructor extraordinaire Roy Peter Clark… offers clear, practical solutions. Anyone who writes will find value.”
—Sacramento Bee
“No matter where you get stuck, dip into this book and you’ll find tips and tricks to get yourself moving again—all accompanied by the humor, wit, and cheerful sympathy that have made Clark one of the country’s most beloved and effective writing teachers.”
—Jason Fry, Reinventing the Newsroom
The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English
“A grammar manual for the twenty-first century—a little more earthy, a little more relaxed. A welcome addition to the bookshelf of anyone who cares about language.”
—Ammon Shea, New York Times Book Review
“A fine common-sense guide to the proper use of language.”
—Barbara Fisher, Boston Globe
Little, Brown Books • Available wherever paperbacks are sold
IN PRAISE OF ROY PETER CLARK’S
Writing Tools
“For all the aspiring writers out there—whether you’re writing a novel or a technical report—a respected scholar pulls back the curtain on the art. ‘Think of writing as carpentry,’ he says, ‘and consider this book your toolbox.’”
—Teresa K. Weaver, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“I wish I’d had Writing Tools when I began my life as a writer—not only because it would have spared me so much anguish, but because it would have helped me have a hell of a lot more fun.”
—Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of Random Family
“Superlative.… The advice is practical, sharp, and hefty. What makes it a pleasure to read is that the prose proves and demonstrates the principles as it goes, morphing a list-shaped book into a page-turner with some out-loud laughs.”
—Janet Burroway, St. Petersburg Times
“For a long time, Roy Peter Clark has had more faith than anyone I know (including me) in the premise that people can be taught to write well. Now he has gone and written a book that shows exactly how. Writing Tools offers advice and lessons that will help me, my students, and anyone with the dream of becoming a better writer.”
—Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down and Guests of the Ayatollah
“Would that I had had Clark’s manual when I wrote my first book, Dead Man Walking. This book, replete with incisive techniques and strategies, also includes a mentor: Clark’s guiding voice is on every page. Writers couldn’t ask for a better teacher.”
—Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking
“In The Elements of Style, Professor William Strunk gaveled English usage to order and E. B. White elevated its style. Now the ebullient Roy Peter Clark sets the lyrics of the language to playful music and lets it dance. His Writing Tools fits on the same shelf as Strunk and White and lends it some streetwise fun.… Americans from college student to memo-mangling CEO need this one on the desk. It’s not just a helpful handbook to sort out awkward writing. It’s a public service.”
—Eugene C. Patterson, Pulitzer Prize–winning editor and retired chairman and CEO, St. Petersburg Times
“What a relief to read a handbook about writing that stresses tools, not rules, that shows what you can do as a writer as opposed to what you should do.… The book is beautifully carpentered, the prose equivalent of a Shaker table, which I predict will hold up to continued and hard use as the years go by and it mellows into both a classic and a keeper.”
—Madeleine Blais, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle and Uphill Walkers
“In this terrific book, Roy Peter Clark helps us see that what we secretly hoped is true—that any person, at any stage, can become a better writer.… Every writer should have this book on her desk. It’s destined to become a classic.”
—Diana K. Sugg, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter, Baltimore Sun
“This is the most useful book of its kind I’ve seen since William Zinsser’s On Writing Well. The format is lucid and concise. The examples are brilliantly chosen. And Roy Peter Clark’s brief explanatory essays are models of the writer’s craft. A masterwork from a master teacher.”
—David Von Drehle, author of Triangle: The Fire That Changed America
“Pull out a favorite novel or short story, and read it with the guidance of Clark’s ideas.… Readers will find new worlds in familiar places. And writers will be inspired to pick up their pens.”
—Boston Globe
“What a nifty book! It’s not only useful, central, wise, rigorous, and forgiving, it’s also a riot. The author’s quirky Buddha-nature shines through.”
—Mark Kramer, director of the Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism, Harvard University
“Clark is a joyful, brilliant teacher who unlocks the mysteries of literary flow. This book is one
to keep near the keyboard.”
—Anne Hull, national reporter for the Washington Post
“There are ‘born writers’ in this world, sometimes as many as two or three a century. The rest of us have to work at it. That means thinking analytically about the skills we need to acquire. Roy Clark has been doing just that for over thirty years and generously sharing his insights in the classroom, in the newsroom, and in his popular workshops. Now he has given writers of every kind fifty ‘tools’ to improve our work. Here’s a fifty-first: buy this book!”
—Howell Raines, journalist and author of The One That Got Away
“Roy is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of writing teachers.… Like its author, Writing Tools is brilliant, openhearted, and indispensable; it’s easily one of the best books ever published about our craft.”
—Thomas French, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of Unanswered Cries and South of Heaven
“This is a useful tool for writers at all levels of experience, and it’s entertainingly written, with plenty of helpful examples.”
—David Pitt, Booklist
… AND HIS MOST RECENT BOOK
Look for The Art of X-Ray Reading, published by Little, Brown and Company. Following is an excerpt.
1
X-raying Gatsby
Power of the Parts
Like so many others, I was introduced to The Great Gatsby in high school—just about the time the Beatles arrived in America. Because I went to high school on Long Island, I was curious about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s transformation of Great Neck and Sands Point into West Egg and East Egg. Beyond that, the book was lost on me. I lacked the experiences of impossible love and incalculable wealth. I had not yet acquired the critical capacity to appreciate the book’s lyrical sentences. When a teacher ranked it near the top of modern American novels, my response was, “You mean that’s the best we can do?”
Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer Page 23
