Forum Moderators: not2easy
I'm a programmer by trade, and I want to be able to write like a professional.
* What is your favorite 'how-to' writing book?
(please classify your book type/focus e.g. grammer, style, ...)
Want to know something about yourself, which might help in your personal decisions about writing, becoming a writer, what to write about? "What Colour is Your Parachute" by Bolles.
You should consider taking some college classes in English and Journalism.
The first step is to build a solid foundation. Many people falsely believe that simply writing is how you get better. This is only true when you are building off a solid foundation.
The Elements of Style is a must-have book for any writer. It's a quick read and will help you be more concise. Depending on the type of writing you will be crafting, you will need further study in that area. For example, if you wanted to write professional level articles for print, websites and so forth, you should get very familiar with journalism.
A great story is much more than simply proper grammar. Another example would be travel articles. You would want to spend time learning, specifically, about how to write them. Travel articles, on the professional level, have their own guidelines.
While it will take you years of learning and practice to be on the professional level, it will take far less time to be on the level of writers currently writing for the web that charge 1-5 cents per word.
I am interested in improving my ability to:
1. write tutorials (technical topics like html etc)
2. write automotive reviews (they use allot of descriptive words to get you excited).
3. write a blog (yes that is VERY general I know).
I was hoping that I could really improve my writing in say 1 year, not sure a college course would do that! At the same time, not all colleges are the same nor are the courses so it really depends on if I find a great course and teacher.
Read it through once to learn all the errors you have been making, then keep it on hand as a reference.
Is the title a misnomer? Is style individualistic? If so, if everyone adopts "Elements of Style", no one has "a style." Could be true - a lot of writing today is heavily influenced - not bland, not exciting, but easy to read with good sentence structure (unlike this post).
I've owned my copy for 20 years and still keep it within arm's reach of my desk.
I enjoyed another book called On Writing by Stephen King. If you skip the biography part you can get some tips. The book is mainly about writing novels, but it can be applied to other writing.
