The older generation has enough familiarity with Old English that the classics are still an enjoyable read, although many don’t know that when Juliet asked Romeo, “Wherefore art thou?” she...

Bestselling authors may write great paragraphs, but we can learn ways to make them even better. We strengthen the picture if we can find ways to describe the scene in...

Bestselling authors may write great paragraphs, but we can learn ways to make them even better. Saying “she was frustrated” or “she was upset” gives an observation without much feeling....

Bestselling authors may write great paragraphs, but we can learn ways to make them even better. A great paragraph from The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins: It’s a...

Bestselling authors may write great paragraphs, but we can learn ways to make them even better. A great paragraph from The Lake House by James Patterson: There were bullets ringing...

Here’s a great paragraph from The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Can we do even better? Yes, we often can improve a sentence by not starting with “it.”...

Nothing is more important than the opening paragraph of a novel. You want to start strong and build from there. For practice, find a great opening from a bestselling novelist,…

The best writing gives the words in the precise sequence to the way everything would be observed. We should try to avoid ending a sentence with something that happened earlier….

If you’re inclined to string together long sentences, keep in mind that today’s audience likes “short and sweet” as long as the information flows smoothly from one action to the...

To create a dark feeling of depression, we must write something better than “she was depressed,” or the cliché: “it was a dark and stormy night.” Readers need to be...