hello, i was down at barns and nobels a couple days ago. and picked up these 2 books called grammar sucks Amazon.com: Grammar Sucks: What to Do to Make Your Writing Much More Better (...Sucks): Books: Joanne Kimes,Gary Robert Muschla and this one. The Art of Styling Sentences. Amazon.com: The Art of Styling Sentences: Books: Ann, Ph.D. Longknife,K.D. Sullivan What do you all think. jim
Never heard of those.. Will have to check them out. The one book I've used for years (as most people probably have?) is The Elements of Style - E.B. White. Very good in the grammar / style of writing department.
The book that really opened my eyes to the main things I was doing wrong is a book on creating non-fiction by a 2X Pulitzer prize winner named Jon Franklin called "Writing For Story." One to the things it covers is "finding" what the real story is, not the perceived story. He goes into all the stuff I harp about like "write from the end" and so on. William Zissner's "On Writing Well" is another. Joseph. M. Williams's "Style: Toward Clarity and Grace." (Yellow cover with big "Style" in the center) Grammar books are fine but you have to get to a level of "book" not "sentence." Grammar is more about constructiong sentances, not larger items. You need books on structure--a lot of us "college educated" writers covered that in classes. The books I mentioned were the most helpful to me. Williams's "Chain" structures are what it is all about. If you go to Half.com, or Amazon look in the college textbooks or general books and see if you can find used books on story structure. Also, you can browse books in the library. Look in the "how to write" area. Ask a librarian. If you like a book, then buy it. (Oh, my family lives in Vancouver!!!)
