Paula LaRocque - The Book on Writing

ALSO BY PAULA LaROCQUE

Chalk Line, a Ben Gallagher Mystery

On Words: Insight Into How Our Words Workand Dont

Championship Writing: 50 Ways to Improve Your Writing

Copyright 2003 by Paula LaRocque

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in whole or in part in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission from the copyright holderexcept by reviewers, who may quote brief excerpts in articles for print or electronic publication.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

LaRocque, Paula

The book on writing: the ultimate guide to writing well / by Paula LaRocque
p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-9892367-0-6

1. Authorship. I. Title.

PN4775.L288 2003

808.02--dc21

2003013308

Author photo 2010 Kevin Bearden

Cover design: Anne Locascio

ISBN: 0989236706

ISBN 13: 978-0-9892367-0-6

eBook ISBN: 978-0-9892367-1-3

Grey and Guvnor Press

Arlington, Texas

www.paulalarocque.com

Praise for The Book on Writing

LaRocques advice is sane and sound.... Beginning writers should find clear, useful advice here.

Publishers Weekly

A clear and concise guide. (Kindle Edition)

Library Journal

Paula LaRocque offers her impressive expertise in The Book On Writing: The Ultimate Guide To Writing Well... an excellent and highly recommended guide to clarity of thought and printed word.

Midwest Book Review

Paula LaRocque understands the way to elegant, artful storytelling is simple, basic, accurate words used sparingly and with purpose. She demonstrates why clarity, simplicity, and dignity top flabby construction and corpulent descriptives every time. The Book on Writing is THE book on writing.

Bob Giles, curator, Nieman Foundation for Journalism
Harvard University

This book is well-organized, cleanly written, and keenly insightful. It embraces the whole of writingwhether of great novelists or office managers... This is really good and useful stuff.

Allen Pusey, editor and publisher
ABA Journal, American Bar Association

Dont waste your time arguing with Paula LaRocques advice. Just read, learn, and do. Its a guarantee you WILL write well and your readers will get well in the process.

Tom Sylvestri, president
Community Newspapers, Media General, Inc.

[The Book on Writing was chosen by the American Booksellers Association for its Top Ten list as well as for the highly influential Book Sense 76 list. The Writers Web Watch also named The Book on Writing No. 1 of the top six books published in 2003.]

This book is for my son, David

For my sisters Keeta and Mona

And in memory of Andrea, my little girl lost

Contents

The Book on Writing

Authors Note

The Book on Writing: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Well contains the bulk of what Ive learned and taught in three decades of working with writers. It is meant to be one-stop shopping for writers working in any genre.

The book consists of three sections, the first of which presents specific principles that I became acquainted with early in my university teaching career and have depended upon since. Those guidelines became clear to me one by one, as I read and corrected thousands of college essays and saw the work break down and become unreadable for this reason or that. The guidelines, which are chiefly mechanical and structural, help bring accuracy, precision, clarity, brevity, warmth, and interest to any writing.

Each chapter of Section One begins with a short and simply stated guideline, followed by discussion and examples from various fields showing how the guideline works in the real world.

Section Two deals with the creative elements of storytelling: narrative writing, story archetype, and literary device; building interest and suspense; description; figurative language and imagery; words and sound; and pace. Ive paid particular attention to the role of archetype and literary device in storytellingincluding in informational media. Story form in myth and archetype is an exciting, meaningful, and fertile field of study for all writers, but it is sadly neglected and misunderstood.

Section Three presents a clear, concise, and brief handbook that focuses on common problems in grammar, usage, punctuation, and styleproblems that often bother even wordsmiths. The handbook is not a comprehensive guide to grammar, style, and usage, but it comprises the material that most often goes awry in writing of all kinds. s final chapter, Style Guide, contains answers to the questions Im most often asked in writing workshops.

I sincerely hope you will find The Book on Writing helpful in all your writingmemo, report, feature, or story. My desire throughout was to offer you something that would not only help you achieve accurate, clear, and brief informational writing, but that would also assist you in your creative work, whether fact or fiction.

The flawed examples in this book are real passages, gleaned from publications, reports, and correspondence of all kinds. Ive changed the names of people or place or both to protect the identity of writer and publication. Some portions of the book may have previously appeared in a different form in my Mastering the Art column for the Society of Professional Journalists magazine, Quill, or in my Words Matter column for The Dallas Morning News.

I extend my heartfelt gratitude to my husband, Paul, who reads and edits my work with tireless intelligence, generosity, and good cheer. I also thank Emily Boehm, a young woman whom I havent met but who named this book. She was at the time a student at Kalamazoo College and an intern at Marion Street Press, Inc., and she interviewed me for an article she was writing. During the interview, I mentioned the challenge of finding the right title for my new book. Any ideas, Emily? I asked.

Why dont you call it what youre calling it, she suggested.

Am I calling it something?

Youre calling it The Book on Writing, she said.

And so I was.

Paula LaRocque

Arlington, Texas

April 2003

I see but one rule: to be clear. If I am not clear, all my world crumbles to nothing.

Stendhal, writing to Balzac

I created the writing guidelines in this section of The Book on Writing during many years of working with writers and non-writers and discovering what happened when their written communications went wrong. The guidelines are just thatthey are not rules. Skilled writers know how, when, and why to ignore them, but even the skilled do so only selectively and with particular purpose. Rare exceptions aside, these guidelines will help make your writing clear, brief, precise, purposeful, warm, and interesting. And, because the principles are easy to understand and apply, theyre especially useful not only in the editing process but also when youre writing in a hurry.