Reddit reviews The Elements of Style: 50th Anniversary Edition

Amateur. Why don't you call up my friends Strunk and White?

> some people probably thought your comment was disrespectful

Hmm, that gives me pause. I don't mean to be disrespectful. I am highly critical of feminism, but I am not intending to give offense.

I would like to think that people who identify overly much with feminism are offended by my ideas, not my tone, but I could be completely wrong about that.

Is there some way I could make my points, which I think are all valid, without offending people?

Do you have some suggestions or a link on writing more effectively and/or less offensively?

I have read Strunk's Elements of Style, but that was many years ago.

I too would like to be a published writer at some point, so I completely identify with your questions. I am 27 and sometimes wonder if it's too late for me as well but I have to keep telling myself that it is never too late. It's possible that your writing could only get better with age, as you are able to draw from more of your life experiences.

Here are some tips and recommendations that I have found to be useful:

• Read a lot and write a lot. Reading a lot will help you get an understanding of what works and what doesn't, what to do and what not to. You will be able to see good writing from bad writing and it will help you increase your vocabulary and get an understanding of formatting techniques although don't worry too much about that until the end. You have to be willing to write a lot as well. It will give you practice and teach you the best ways to get your ideas onto paper. Don't worry if it makes sense or not or whether or not it is part of the story you want to create, just get as much of it as you can out.
  
  
• You will have to put the time in to get the results. Writing is an extremely time consuming task and it can be difficult to find motivation especially if this is something you are doing on the side while still working a full time job. This is one of the things I struggle with, trying to find the time or energy to do the writing. Writing is a very energy-consuming activity for me and it requires my complete attention. Finding that can be difficult.
  
  
• Writing is rewriting. Don't be afraid to go back and rework everything once you get it out. Revisions will only make your work stronger.
  
  
• Don't use long or big words just to sound "smart" or "eloquent" or to make your work longer. More often than not, the first words that come to mind will be sufficient. Usually the most direct way to say something is the best.
  
  
• Don't show what can be said, don't say what can be shown. Try to find a good balance of not over describing the setting or provide too much description or narration. You can learn a lot just from what a character says and how they say it. Do not over-describe your setting, allow the reader to imagine things on their own, using their own experiences to create the world. Dialogue is probably the most difficult thing for me. Just be sure that your character's voices are unique and remain constant to who they are, even if the character's point of view is different than yours or what you believe in. Make sure what your characters are saying is truthful and believable to themselves. If the characters happen to be less than intelligent, show that in the way they talk.
  
  Some books I have found to be very helpful:
  
  
• Get yourself a good grammar book. I would recommend The Elements of Style. This one is quite good, comes highly recommended and has been around for 50 years.
  
  
• I am particularly a fan of Stephen King and his books. He wrote a book that was published in 2000 called On Writing. I have found it immensely helpful, a great book about the craft. I believe there is a 10th anniversary edition coming out this summer, probably with additions and updates. Half of the book, Stephen talks about how he got started, selling his first book "Carrie", stories from his life that influenced his work. The second half is his "Toolbox" section where he talks about tools and components to writing, vocabulary, grammar, dialogue, character description and development, narration, etc. It's all very frank and he tells you just exactly what you need to hear. Extremely useful.
  
  
• If you are creating an entire story (and not something short or small like poetry), you will need to have a good understanding of how the pieces are constructed, how to set up a beginning, a middle and an end successfully. I have this but have not read it yet, a book called Elements of Writing Fiction - Beginnings, Middles & Ends. So far it seems quite good and useful. When I was in college I took several screenwriting courses so this is something I already have a fairly good grasp on but it's still good to have something like this on hand to refer back to. I am more interested in writing fiction right now, as opposed to screenwriting so it is a bit challenging to change techniques. The two are very different.
  
  
• If you get to the point where you have completed a few pieces of writing and are hoping to get something published, you should probably start by picking up one of the Writer's Market books. I am interested in novel writing so that's the one that I linked to but there are different variations depending on what type of writing you are trying to get published. Just do a search on Writer's Market. The book contains complete, up-to-date contact information for book publishers, magazines and journals, literary agents, contests and conferences. There is a lot of very useful information in this book for when you get to that stage.
  
  I am certainly no expert but hopefully this is useful advice and helps motivate you to get to it!
  
  *EDIT: Added another recommended book.

Short term (i.e. your paper): Get a draft to your teacher early and ask how you can improve it for your final draft. You'll want your teacher's opinion as early as possible if it's a good grade you want. Proofread it yourself and have others proofread it if possible.

Long term: The Elements of Style

Some other advice:

• Good academic writing doesn't mean fancy or indirect, it means clear and concise.
  
  
• Make becoming a better writer your goal if you want to really improve. Your work will be better and your teacher will sense your genuine interest when you approach them for help.
  
  
• Take advantage of your teacher's help even if you don't like them.
  
  
• Ultimately, getting better at anything is up to you, and that means putting time in.

I was recommended an American classic, Strunk and White's The Elements of Style for my undergraduate thesis class in Economics, we also write more technical papers and I found it very useful. It has guidelines on style and things to avoid, which adds more structure to the way you write and reduces the amount of things that you have to think about while writing.

Strunk and White

Or learn a foreign language. My knowledge of grammar grew exponentially after studying Classics.

There are two books that I recommend reading. On Writing by Stephen King and The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White. I have learned a lot from both. One of the best pieces of advice from King was; read a lot and write a lot. It seems too obvious to be helpful advice, but I started a reading regiment that matched my writing regiment. Soon I was studying books as well as reading them, and I learned a lot more about wordplay, grammar, and vocabulary.

As far as grammar is concerned, I want my writing to communicate my emotions to the reader. That's my ultimate goal. Sometimes that requires perfect grammar, sometimes that requires breaking the rules. Take The Road by Cormac McCarthy for example. He's basically thrown all grammar rules out the window for the sake of his story, and it's an excellent story.

One of my writing professors told me there are three rules to breaking rules, and they have become my favorite rules of all. They are:

1. You have to know you're breaking a rule.
   
2. Your audience has to know you're breaking a rule.
   
3. Your audience has to know that you know that you're breaking a rule.
   
   If you can accomplish those three than it's a safe bet you haven't lost your reader. However, readers will put down a book just because of the grammar, so we must be diligent.

As long as you put your desire and hope in the act of writing itself, as opposed to the desire of wanting to have written something, you will do well.

I would suggest a few pieces of light reading, a few pieces of heavy reading, and some listening for you too.

Light reading:

Stephen King's "On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft" This book is not meant as a book of lessons so much as the formula that assembled one writer. It's short, it's heartfelt, and it has some wisdom in it.

The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White. - This is a short book, it gives a good starter set of rules that we accept for communicating with one another in the English language.

Heavy Reading:

Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell. - This is a short book but it is very thick with information and esoteric names from all cultures. Why is that? Because it deals with, very succinctly, the fundamental core of nearly all human storytelling, Campbell's "Monomyth" premise can inform you all the way from the Epic of Gilgamesh to Star Wars a New Hope

Writing Excuses This is a Podcast about writing by Brandon Sanderson, of "Mistborn," "Way of Kings," and "Wheel of Time" fame, Howard Taylor, the writer and artist of Schlock Mercenary, a webcomic that hasn't missed a day for a long while, Mary Robinette Kowol, a Puppeteer and Author of "Shades of Milk and Honey" and Dan Wells, from the "I am not a Serial Killer" series It has been going on for more than a decade, and nearly every episode is a wonderful bit of knowledge.

This might help

But it probably won't.

If you are trying to develop your fundamentals:

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Elements-Style-Anniversary-Edition/dp/0205632645