A Bit of Advice about Writing

The following was taken from Writing Alone, Writing Together: A Guide for Writers and Writing Groups by Judy Reevees.

Eight Techniques from Jack Kerouac

• Blow as deep as you want to blow
• Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
• Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
• Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
• Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
• Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
• No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language and knowledge
• Write for the world to read and see your exact pictures of it

Nine Guidelines from William Struck Jr.

• Choose a suitable design and hold to it.
• Use the active voice.
• Put statements in positive form.
• Use definite, specific, concrete language.
• Omit needless words.
• Avoid a succession of loose sentences.
• Keep related words together.
• In summaries, keep to one tense.
• Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.

Twelve Suggestions from E.B. White

• Place yourself in the background
• Write in a way that comes naturally
• Work from a suitable design
• Write with nouns and verbs
• Do not overwrite
• Avoid the use of qualifiers
• Do not affect a breezy style
• Do not explain too much
• Do not take shortcuts at the cost of clarity
• Make sure the reader knows who is speaking
• Do not use dialect
• Revise and rewrite

Seven Beacons from Gary Provost

1. Brevity
2. Clarity
3. Precision
4. Harmony
5. Humanity
6. Honesty
7. Poetry

Eleven "Fumblerules" from William Safire

• No sentence fragments.
• It behooves us to avoid archaisms.
• Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration
• If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, "Resist hyperbole."
• Avoid commas, that are not necessary.
• Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
• Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
• Writing carefully, dangling participles should not be used.
• Kill all the exclamation points!!!
• Don't verb nouns.
• Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague.