Vocabulary And Success
Now you know where you stand. If you are in the below average or average group, you must consider, seriously, whether an inadequate vocabulary may be holding you back. (If…
Exercise In Rewriting
The extract below is extremely difficult to follow, partly because of its high-flown style, and partly because of its unhelpful structure. Read it carefully – it eventually yields up its…
Lessons From The Masters
If you want to learn the secret of successful writing, who better to look to than famous authors? The trouble is, their lives and methods suggest that the secret has…
The Mixed Metaphor and its Relatives
A succession of metaphors or similes drawn from different fields of comparison sometimes produces a laughably clashing effect – even when they are dead or half-dead metaphors. There are many…
The Structure of a Joke By Good Comedian
The good comedian builds a joke up carefully: all the necessary details appear one by one (and sometimes some unnecessary details too, partly to distract the listeners from predicting the…
The Structure of Nursery Rhymes In An Unfamiliar Guise
Here are some familiar nursery rhymes in an unfamiliar guise – as if composed by a poet who lacked the patience to structure his ideas properly before committing them to…
Planning by Schematic Outlines Structure
A writer’s plan or outline is in some ways like a traveller’s itinerary. Follow the instructions, and you will produce a well-ordered document, just as the traveller will catch his…
Planning the Structure BY Writer’s
For some lucky creative writers, planning apparently takes place subconsciously. The poem or play or story seems to present itself fully formed to the writer’s mind, in a dream or…