When I stray online, occasionally meet this famous excerpt from 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing:
This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals — sounds that say listen to this, it is important.
So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just write words. Write music.
This is the most creativity excerpt I ever read, easily help me understand how a sentence can keep a vibrant excerpt as music, that’s the reason why I read this book, I would say, this is an amazing journey, also is a good beginning to a new learner
Before start writing, I have no chance to attend a formal writing class, meet a dedicated teacher, create a knowledge construction about writing, so reading is a good choice for me to improve my writing skills, 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing introduced 100 skills, all of them are insightful and helpful, some useful advises to me such as:
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.
and:
Active verbs do something. Inactive verbs are something. You will gain power over readers if you change verbs of being such as is, was, and will be to verbs of motion and action.
Bad: A grandfather clock was in one corner, and three books were on top of it.
Better: A grandfather clock towered in one corner, and three books lay on top of it.If you want to emphasize the amount of money that somebody owes you, you write, “By June first please send me a check for $107.12.” If you want to emphasize the due date, you write, “Please send me a check for $107.12 by June first.” And if you want to emphasize who the check is to go to, write, “On June first the check for $107.12 should be sent to me.” This is a lesson best learned by ear. Listen to how the impact of a sentence moves to whatever information happens to be at the end.
Thanks Gary Provost for his extraordinary masterpiece, he dead before internet spread many years ago, so only little information I can find from wikipedia, but someone made a website introduce all his work, a letter send to Gary Provost said:
For more than 30 years I have been in and out of professional writing — as a writer, a columnist, an editor, a proofreader, a typesetter, a graphic designer, a researcher, and a professor. For most of that time, my copy of 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing has been within arm’s reach. It’s as indispensable to me as Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style, or The Associated Press Stylebook. Mine is a first edition (1985, paper), and its pages are dog-eared and yellow. But I refuse to let go of it. Ever. I only wish I could be as faithful to its axioms and advice as I am to my wife.
Over the years I have won awards (most of which were undeserved) for writing, teaching, editing, and coaching. Looking back, I have to wonder how much of the simplicity and clarity I have learned to love actually originated in the pages of 100 Ways. At what point do simple tips like “Don’t explain when you don’t have to,” and “Avoid wordiness” move beyond the task of writing and begin to permeate one’s entire life? Want to teach football to a ten-year old? “Begin at the beginning.” Want to hold a college student’s attention? “Say things in a positive way . . . most of the time.” Want to get a job? “Make yourself likable.” Want to earn respect on the job? “Provide useful information.” Want your kids to listen to your advice? “Obey your own rules.” You get the idea. I’d have a hard time finding any topic in 100 Ways that cannot be extended to other areas of life, always with positive outcomes. And its effect on one’s writing is without equal.
Thanks so much for keeping Gary’s legacy alive and changing lives. . . I am amazed at the renewed interest in quality writing that seems to be emerging among college students. I feel that Gary’s work could not be more timely than it is right now.
So good to find a video at Youtube about Gary Provost:
