The Book on Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Well
You’re going to love the way Paula LaRocque teaches you how to write. She’s a master writing coach with a sense of humor and a gentle touch.
The Book on Writing contains 25 chapters in three sections: 1) A dozen essential guidelines to good writing, from the importance of short sentences to the value of using a conversational tone; 2) How to tell a story – how to build suspense, how to effectively describe things, how to use literary devices; and 3) A concise handbook on writing mechanics, such as grammar, usage, punctuation, and style.
Read this book once and you’ll be a better writer. Read it often and you’ll be among the best.
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LaRocque Practices What She Preaches,
Over the years, I have relied on various works to instruct and guide my efforts to write more effectively. For example, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, Zinnser’s On Writing Well, and Hacker’s Rules for Writers. To them I now add this book. The Book on Writing is widely adopted (or recommended) by school, college, and university instructors. I think it will also be of great value to just about anyone else who needs to improve reasoning and reading as well as writing skills. LaRocque divides her 22 chapters within two parts, “A Dozen Guidelines to Good Writing” and “Language and Mechanics.” The chapter titles suggest several key points, all of which are evident in the non-fiction of masters such as George Orwell and E.B. White. For example:
Chapter 1: Keep Sentences Short, and Keep to One Main Idea Per Sentence
Chapter 5: Use the Right Word
Chapter 7: Prefer Active Verbs and the Active Voice
Chapter 8: Cut Wordiness
Chapter 12: Get Right to the Point. And Stay There
Although these and other of LaRocque’s guidelines may seem obvious, my own experience as a classroom teacher suggests that few students seem to be aware of them…and even fewer follow them. (FYI, I taught English for 13 years in two New England boarding schools — Kent and St. George’s — and for the past 10 years have been an adjunct professor of English at a local community college in the Dallas area.) What sets LaRocque’s book apart from almost all others which cover much of the same material is that her personal, indeed conversational style establishes and then sustains a tutorial relationship with her reader; also, throughout her book, she includes hundreds of real-world examples of writing which is correct or incorrect, appropriate or inappropriate, effective or ineffective.
In Chapter 23, LaRocque includes “A Brief (But Not Necessarily Easy) Quiz” which I encourage everyone to take before reading anything else in the book. The quiz consists of 20 sentences. LaRocque then identifies “common grammar and punctuation problems that trouble many people,” followed by “A Pronoun primer” because she asserts (and I agree) that proper use of pronouns will solve most of the most common grammar problems. By first taking the quiz and then reviewing the explanations and pronoun primer which follow, most readers will have a strong motivation to absorb and digest the material provided in the other 24 chapters.
I anticipate that many of them will then purchase copies of The Book on Writing to be given to family members, friends, and associates. It would be an especially appropriate birthday, holiday, or graduation gift to students as well as to those recently embarked on their career, perhaps accompanied by a copy of Orwell’s A Collection of Essays and/or Essays of E. B. White (Perennial Classics). Both are also available in an inexpensive paperbound edition.
Paula LaRocque, well-done!
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|Is LaRocque America’s Foremost Writing Coach?,
This author has impeccable credentials, having worked in journalism all her professional life. She has been a newspaper editor, corporate seminar leader (in writing and communication), college professor, and author of many books. She puts a lifetime of writing, editing, and the teaching of writing into this book. No wonder it is so good.
She divides it into three parts:
Part I – a dozen guidelines in 80 pages: Keep sentences short, and keep to one main idea per sentence; avoid pretensions, gobbledygook, and euphemisms; change long and difficult words to short and simple words; be wary of jargon, fad, and cliche; use the right word; avoid beginning with long dependent phrases; prefer active verbs and the active voice; cut wordiness; avoid vague qualifiers; prune prepositions; limit number and symbol; get right to the point. And stay there.
Part II – Chapters 13 – 22, 10 points in 80 pages: This part is the meat, is the hardest to achieve, and is about telling your story. She fills it with examples from famous and not-so-famous authors, good writing and bad:
LaRocque: Creative writers can strengthen their work with allusions or quotations without explaining or attributing them. This is especially true of quotations, if they’re well known. Sometimes both writer and characters can have fun with allusions or quotations, or otherwise find them useful in clarifying the action.
In Ruth Rendel’s “Shake Hands Forever,” her sleuth Inspector Wexford says on the phone to one of his investigators: “Howard, you are my only ally.” Howard responds: “Well, you know what Chesterton said about that. I’ll be at that bus stop from five-thirty onwards tonight and then we’ll see.”
Wexford put on his dressing gown and went downstairs to find what Chesterton had said. “There are no word to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one….” He felt considerably cheered. Maybe he had no force of men at his disposal but he had Howard, the resolute, the infinitely reliable, the invincible, and together they were two thousand.
Pertinent as Chesterfield’s words are to Wexford’s situation, it would be awkward for Rendel herself to use them. By giving the allusion to a character instead, she maintains her invisibility as a narrator while telling the reader something about the characters, their interests, and relationships as well. The allusion, and Wexford’s reaction, also help the reader understand Wexford’s state of mind.
Part III – Language and writing mechanics in 35 pages. Dispelling the myths, the middle chapter of three, tells you that: You can and should split infinitives or verb phrases when the results flow better; you can end a sentence with a preposition if it is not clumsy; starting sentences with “and” or “but” is frequently attractive; you can use contractions in formal writing when the result sounds better; you should retain the serial comma in all cases; you shouldn’t hesitate to use “that” when it makes the sentence more clear; finally, you should use the article “a” rather than “an” before “historic” because it sounds better.
LaRocque suggests there is literary and grammatical agreement amongst the authorities and graciously names about 10 competing books that any professional would recognize. That must mean that when looking for the right book – they’re all going to give you the same advice – you should choose one readable enough and comprehensive enough to suit your taste. This is definitely one to consider – a top notch choice.
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|THE NONPAREIL BOOK ON WRITING,
For anyone who wants to improve his/her writing, be it a novel, report, or personal correspondence, there is no better guide than Paula LaRocque’s The Book on Writing.
She defines and illustrates such divers topics as wordiness, jargon, vague qualifiers, archetype, and many more. Writing in which the narrative is elegant, concise, and easy for the reader to follow is decidedly not easy. After reading LaRocque, the verity of Mark Twain’s admission that, “I would have written you a shorter note if I had had the time,” will be more fully appreciated.
This is not a dry, pedantic `how to’ book on writing. It is an entertainingly easy to follow guide on not only what to do, but just as importantly, what not to do. Building interest and suspense, creating word pictures, use of appropriate metaphor, and other writing techniques are explained and illustrated in this superb book.
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