Four Books That Cost Less Than $20 but Will Teach You More Than an English Degree
The lessons you need to improve your writing are buried in these books.
Have you ever heard that to be a great writer, you need to be a great reader?
Well, people don't throw that around without any reasoning. To get good at any art of skill, you need to observe and learn the skills of the game.
You must be willing to deliberately improve your game to be great at any skill.
And what better way to improve your writing other than reading some of the most excellent writer's work and their advice on how you can improve your writing?
100 Ways to Improve Your Writing
by Gary Provost
Gary Provost wrote 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing in 1985, but his advice is still helpful today.
The tips are short and come with examples that show how to write well while you read well-written words. The style of this book is what makes it stand out. You can read a short piece of text and learn a few things about what you should and shouldn't do as a rule.
Or you can read the whole book from cover to cover.
It talks about both writing and how to get ready to write when you're not writing. Chapters on how to get past writer's block, find your own style and save time and energy.
Quotes that stuck with me —
“Hear how the use of the wrong word wakes you from your reading spell.”
― Gary Provost, 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing“Someone once said that if you steal from one writer, it’s called plagiarism, but if you steal from several, it’s called research. So steal from everybody, but steal only a sentence or a phrase at a time. If you use much more than that, you must get permission and then give credit.”
― Gary Provost, 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing
