Notes From A Writing Coach

Two excellent books for writers

This is a great month for writers. Out this month: two marvelous books, from two of the country’s most eminent writing coaches, Jack Hart and Roy Peter Clark.

I mentioned Mr. Hart’s book, A Writer’s Coach, in the last column. It deserves more than a mention. Mr. Hart has coached writers for years at The Oregonian newspaper, and for part of that time he produced a newsletter called Second Takes for the paper’s staff and freeloaders like me who were lucky enough to get on the mailing list. It was the best newsletter on writing I’ve ever seen. I only wish I had the full collection of issues.

Mr. Hart has taken much of the best advice from Second Takes and put it into A Writer’s Coach. You will find wisdom on every page. Here’s a sample:

Snake Rule No. 1: Direct quotations must appear as separate paragraphs.
Where’d this one come from? True, we create a separate paragraph for the words of each speaker in a dialogue. But what does that have to do with direct quotes?
For the record, no rule dictates that you set off each direct quotation as a separate paragraph. Do so if you want, for emphasis. But if the quote flows naturally from the preceding introductory material, you’d be well advised to leave it in the same paragraph, like this:
Brady leaned into the bar, cranked his head to the right, and spied the bartender twelve stools down. “Bring me a beer and shot,” he bellowed. “I’m not a patient man.”

Hallelujah!

As Mr. Hart says, no rule—none—requires a separate graf for each quote. But most of the newspaper writers and editors I know act as if such a rule existed. Some editors reflexively swing their trusty little copy hatchets and split a dandy paragraph just to get the quote out.

Roy Peter Clark is vice president and senior scholar at the Poynter Institute in Florida. He published a series of columns, “Fifty Writing Tools,” on Poynter’s Web site, then gathered them into his book. It is Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.

Even if you read the columns on the Web site (they are no longer there) and downloaded them, you will want to get the book.
Mr. Clark makes learning not only painless for the reader but also fun. His book is aptly titled: He gives writers tools to use and play with, not stuffy rules to confine them.

Here’s a paragraph I like:

To understand the difference between a good adverb and a bad adverb, consider these two sentences: “She smiled happily" and “She smiled sadly.” Which one works best? The first seems weak because “smiled” contains the meaning of “happily.” On the other hand, “sadly” changes the meaning.

These books are for writers of every sort, not just journalists.
Every writer I know could profit from them.