| Hi. Some excellent suggestions in this thread already. Here are a few more. 1. Read great writing. If you want to write better nonfiction, read the masters of nonfiction. Michael Lewis. Tracy Kidder. Atul Gawande. Joseph Mitchell. Jon Krakauer. Christopher Hitchens. Tom Junod. If you want to write great fiction, read Murakami, Marquez, Palahniuk, Eggers, Hosseni, Oates, Atwood. (Shameless plug here, you can find stories by these folk at Byliner: http://www.byliner.com ) 2. Read about writing. Some worthy books on this: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King (really!) The Practice of Writing, by David Lodge The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction, by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction, by Phillip Lopate 3. As already mentioned upthread, practice. Write something every day. 4. If you're not confident in your writing, apply your MVP lessons. Write short sentences. Use as few words as possible. Rid your sentences of adjectives and adverbs. Study your verb choices. Ditch the complex punctuation and dependent clauses. Ask yourself, What's the least amount of "writing" necessary to convey this idea or image? 5. Have fun. |
I can't second this enough. I read it once a year, at least. King's writing nonfiction, he's writing nonfiction about writing, and yet his command of his own literary voice is so strong that you feel like he's sitting on the other side of the table from you. It's an amazing, honest book.