The Trendsetter

The contents are divided into 3 parts with each containing several chapters:

Part 1: Pull yourself together

1 - Is your egg ready to hatch? Know the subject
2 - “The party to whom I am speaking”. Know the audience.
3 - Get with the program. The organized writer
4 - Commencement address. The first few words
5 - from here to uncertainty. How am I doing?

In the first part of the book, the author coaxes you to warm up to writing about knowing your subject, readers, organizing your materials in folders, starting your writing engine by using what, why and how, and staying on track to your writing schedule.

I like this bit of advice she gave in the part one:

Whenever there’s something wrong with your writing, suspect that there’s something wrong with your thinking. Perhaps your writing is unclear because your ideas are unclear. Think, read, learn some more. When your egg is ready to hatch, it’ll hatch. In the meantime, sit on it a bit longer.

Part 2: The fundamental things apply

6 - The pompous circumstances. Hold the baloney
7 - The life of the party. Verbs that zing
8 - Call waiting. Putting the subject on hold
9 - Now, where were we? A time and a place for everything
10 - The It parade. Pronoun pileups
11 – Smothering heights: Misbehaving modifiers
12 – Too marvelous for words: The sensible sentence
13 – Made for each other: Well-matched sentences
14 - Give me a break: Thinking in paragraphs
15 - The elongated yellow fruit: Fear of repetition
16 – Training wheels: Belaboring the obvious
17 – Critique of poor reason: The art of making sense
18 – Grammar Moses: Thou shalt not embarrass thyself
19 – Down for the count: When the numbers don’t add up

Part two is where the author starts to get serious about her advice to a novice writer. I learned much about how to write well in this part. She emphasizes using plain words when writing, using interesting yet economical active verbs, keeping your subject and verb close to each other and to place time and space with each sentence you write and more.

Part 3: Getting Better all the time

20 – Lost horizon: What’s the point of view?
21 – Wimping out: The backward writer
22 – Everybody’s Favorite subject: I, Me, My
23 – Promises, promises: Making them, keeping them
24 – You got rhythm: Writing to the beat
25 – The human comedy: What’s so funny?
26 – I second that emotion: Once More, with feeling
27 – The importance of being honest: Leveling with the reader
28 – Once around the block: What to do when you’re stuck
29 – Debt before dishonor: How and what to borrow
30 – Revise and consent: Getting to the finish line