Helen Sword

The Writer's Diet

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“Sword aims to lead us to ‘fit and trim’ prose via an assault course covering horrors such as ‘Prepositional pudge,’ ‘Ad-dictions’ and ‘Waste words.’” —Times Higher Education
Do your sentences sag? Could your paragraphs use a pick-me-up? If so, The Writer’s Diet is for you! It’s a short, sharp introduction to great writing that will help you energize your prose and boost your verbal fitness.
Helen Sword dispenses with excessive explanations and overwrought analysis. Instead, she offers an easy-to-follow set of writing principles: use active verbs whenever possible; favor concrete language over vague abstractions; avoid long strings of prepositional phrases; employ adjectives and adverbs only when they contribute something new to the meaning of a sentence; and reduce your dependence on four pernicious “waste words”: it, this, that, and there.
Sword then shows the rules in action through examples from William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Martin Luther King Jr., John McPhee, A. S. Byatt, Richard Dawkins, Alison Gopnik, and many more. A writing fitness test encourages you to assess your own writing and get immediate advice on addressing problem areas. While The Writer’s Diet is as sleek and concise as the writing ideals contained within, this slim volume packs a powerful punch.
With Sword’s coaching writers of all levels can strengthen and tone their sentences with the stroke of a pen or the click of a mouse. As with any fitness routine, adhering to the rules requires energy and vigilance. The results, however, will speak for themselves.
“Who says nutritious material must be bland? This short book is packed with excellent advice on writing, offered with charm and good cheer.” —Steven Pinker, author of The Sense of Style
This book is currently unavailable
88 printed pages
Original publication
2016
Publication year
2016
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Quotes

  • Aniehas quotedlast year
    Skilful writers can set a scene, paint a character or convey emotions using remarkably few adjectives.
  • Aniehas quotedlast year
    Ad-words cannot stand on their own; an adjective always modifies a noun or a pronoun (a beautiful day; I was happy), while an adverb modifies either a verb (to play gently), an adjective (painfully shy) or another adverb (blissfully slowly). Ad-words lend colour and flavour to our writing; they help us express emotions, describe appearances and define character. Sometimes, however, they sugar-coat weak sentences that lack active verbs and concrete nouns.
  • Aniehas quotedlast year
    Ad-dictions
    Key principles in this chapter:

    • Let concrete nouns and active verbs do most of your descriptive work.

    • Employ adjectives and adverbs only when they contribute new information to a sentence.

    • Avoid overuse of ‘academic ad-words’, especially those with the following suffixes: able, ac, al, ant, ary, ent, ful, ible, ic, ive, less, ous
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