21–30 of 41 posts
The best book I have ever read (and continue to re-read) on writing is "On Writing Well" by William K. Zinsser. Mostly the first half of the book - it's incredibly valuable.
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/writing-english-as-a-secon...
Good, interesting, book on writing from a writing teacher's POV. Useful if you want to read the truth about the struggle to get published. Also good for improving your writing.
_On Writing_ by Stephen King http://amzn.com/1439156816
Stephen King's surprisingly good book on being a professional writer for most of his life.
"Writer's Digest" magazine. http://amzn.com/B00005NIPH
I've been subscribed to Writer's Digest for years. Full of helpful hints, interesting articles, and suggestions for improving your writing, regardless of the genre or media for which you are writing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you also have some another suggestion that might be on Kindle store? "On Writing Well" only seems to have a CD audio collection.
It's also available in paperback (for $10!). If you're serious about learning to write well, it's well worth putting down the Kindle and going "old school" on this one.
Many people use too many words. To shorten your post: "Can anyone recommend good books for improving English writing? I've tried Jason Fried's technique of writing an essay in five versions: three pages, one page, three paragraphs, one paragraph, and one sentence. It worked really well, but I've now become more critical about... ... ..." Two golden rules: practice, and feedback from others. I'm certainly still learni…
Just for an exchange of idea, how would you write my post? (no comparison or offense here, I simply want to see a different style)
Elements of Style is full of little nuggets of good writing. Start a blog/journal to continuously practice the techniques in the book
The good thing about learning to write well is that every books is a book about writing - or at least every good book. Increase the number of top quality books that you read and your language will naturally improve. It's not a magic recipe, and it won't happen overnight, but it will happen. One way to make sure that what you read is always good is to focus on the classics - Dickens, Twain and so on - and also the (go…
That made me smile : ) I hope I can be as persistent as it takes.
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Tools-Essential-Strategies-Wri...
I highly recommend this book. Expect improvement immediately.
General advice: read as much (english) literature as you can. As someone already pointed out, this will help you to improve but will of course take some time and is a process that has no end. Personally I can recommmend also books like "on writing" (by Sol Stein) which gives you advices on general writing (fiction and non-fiction).
Added to my to-read list, thanks :)
Can you share a link to Jason's post about writing essays that you mentioned?