The writer's diet

98 pages

English language

Published Dec. 2, 2007 by Pearson Education New Zealand.

ISBN:
978-1-877371-65-3
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OCLC Number:
174104476

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3 stars (2 reviews)

Is your writing flabby or fit? The Writer's Diet will help you energise your writing, boost your verbal fitness levels and strip unnecessary padding from your prose. In contrast to most other writing and editing guides, The Writer’s Diet offers no ‘big picture’ advice on argument or audience, no instruction on composition or paragraph structure, no primer on grammar and punctuation. Instead, this book zeroes in on five common problems that frequently plague unfit sentences - weakness and excess in verbs, nouns, prepositions, adjectives/adverbs, and ‘waste words’. Writers at every level, from students to professionals, will benefit from The Writer’s Diet workout and enjoy the experience. Before long, you will find yourself producing stylish, energetic prose every time you put pen to paper.

2 editions

Review of "The writer's diet" on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

The
The writers diet is about: choosing active verbs, avoiding nomilzations, adverbs, and filler words. Use preposition that convey motion and use them with care. Keep the verb close the subject.
Great excersize: Abstract to concrete then back again – take abstract word and make it concrete. Take concrete word and make it abstract.
Avoid so called action verbs that are bland – have, make do and use.
Ion, ism, ty, ment, ness, ance,ence.
Use preposition with pep – motion not static.
That, there, this, it = Avoid as filler. Only used when it's clear what it is.
Avoid more than 2 preposition in a sentence.
In one hundred word – less then three to be verbs, less than four nominalizations, less than 14 prepostions. Less than three waste words, less then 6 ad-words that’s the formula

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Subjects

  • English language
  • Rhetoric
  • Written English
  • Style
  • Problems, exercises