5 Tools to Build Your Writing
Taken from Clark’s toolbox
“Poorly written reports, memos, announcements, and messages cost us time and money. They are blood clots in the body politic. The flow of information is blocked. Crucial problems go unsolved. Opportunities for reform and efficiency are buried.” — Roy Peter Clark
Writing’s pretty important.
That was an understatement.
If the world and society and all its peoples were a vast and varied and interconnected collection of textiles, then words would be the threads weaving them — and therefore us — together into a collective and cozy blanket.
The goal, then, is to make it as seamless as possible because, as Roy Peter Clark says above, poor writing costs us all time and money.
And you don’t have time for that. So, I want to save you both.
But poor writing can cost more than time and money: it also threatens to make our collective quilt threadbare because poor communication begins to unravel our interconnected blanket. And we’ve worked so hard together to sew our written words within its warm comfort…
Fortunately, we can always improve our writing. And Roy Peter Clark, author of Writing Tools, thinks of writing tips as “tools” that can be taken from the writer’s “toolbox.”
Let’s take a look at the first 5 tools that he gives us. Pick up your pen and thread your needle, and let’s begin to weave a better blanket.
Tool #1: Begin sentences with subjects and verbs.
I want to get a point across.
And I hope I just did.
I began the last two sentences — and this one — with the subject “I” and the verbs “want” and “hope.”
“Well, that’s pretty obvious,” I hear you say. “Tell me something that will help my writing.” Patience. Understanding the simplicity of this tool will reveal the complexity that it allows.
And we’re getting there.
As I write these words, and as you casually follow, we’re both about to board a written-word roller coaster, waiting, hyped and ready for the horizontal drop — but sorry, you still couldn’t skip the line for this ride…
Roy Peter Clark might describe my paragraph above like this:
“Think of that main clause as the locomotive that pulls all the cars that follow.”
When you begin a sentence or a paragraph with the subject and a verb, like I just did again, all your content that follows thereafter will be like those cars being pulled by that locomotive, which serves to lend forward momentum to your sentence.
But here’s what makes this tool cool — and helpful — for your writing: the inverse of this tool is a tool. Roy Peter Clark explains:
“If the writer wants to create suspense, or build tension, or make the reader wait and wonder, or join a journey of discovery, or hold on for dear life, he can save subject and verb of the main clause until later. As I just did.”
Tool #2: Order words for emphasis.
By placing particular words at the beginning or end of a sentence, I’m telling you — if only tacitly — what I think is most important, dear reader.
For example, this sentence is an example. And redundant. Yet it’s still helpful because, like a sentence, a paragraph participates in the effect that this tool illustrates, which is emphasis, dear reader.
Once again, Roy Peter Clark tells us why this works:
“For any sentence, the period acts as a stop sign. That slight pause in reading magnifies the final word, an effect intensified at the end of a paragraph, where final words often adjoin white space. In a column of type, a reader’s eyes are likewise drawn to the words next to the white space.”
Quoting someone has a similar effect.
“It looked like a UFO,” said John, a man born blind. “I see now it was just a winged dog chasing a legless duck.”
“Begin with a good quote. Hide the attribution in the middle. End with a good quote.” — Roy Peter Clark
Tool #3: Activate your verbs.
“Never use the passive where you can use the active.” — George Orwell
There’s probably never been a tool triter than this one. But don’t let that fool you. It’s a tool that’s taught again and again because it works. And it works well. Some of the most successful writers in the world — which includes George Orwell — have sworn by the virtues of active verbiage.
And it’s because using active verbs is at once vivacious and economical; it sounds more lively and saves us time and money.
So what does it mean to “activate your verbs”?
You activate your verbs — essentially — by making the subject “do” the verb, which sounds wrong, but it’s very right. It is called writing in “the active.” Like this:
I write this sentence in the active form. “I” is the subject, which does the “write.”
In contrast, you inactivate them by making the verb “do” the subject. This is called writing in “the passive.” I’ll show you:
This sentence is written in the passive by me.
If you listen carefully, that sentence also sounds passive; it’s not as strong as the active form. Perhaps it’s a matter of taste. Perhaps your refined ear hears its superior song. Perhaps not.
That’s for you to determine. Still, in any case, the active sentence is economical. (7 words in the active vs. 9 words in the passive).
“The active” is preferred by people because sentences are elongated unnecessarily by “the passive.” See how bad that was? Let me try again:
People prefer “the active” because “the passive” unnecessarily elongates sentences. That’s much better. (10 words in the active vs. 14 words in the passive.)
The short sentence isn’t solely about word count, though. It’s also about simplicity. Simple writing — at least part of it — is writing that is stripped of unnecessary, verbal additives, such as those words found in the passive.
But is active always the best? Not necessarily. Here’s what Clark has to say about that:
“The earnest writer can overuse a writing tool. If you shoot up your verbs with steroids, you risk creating an effect that poet Donald Hall derides as ‘false color,’ the stuff of adventure magazine and romance novels. Temperance controls the impulse to overwrite.”
Tool #4: Be passive-aggressive
“So the gold standard for writing advice is this: use active verbs.” — Roy Peter Clark
Writing in the active may be the “gold standard,” but the passive has its place.
There are two examples I can think of right off the bat that Clark touches upon in his book, Writing Tools.
- The passive can create a vibe of victimization. Example: The nesting birds were gassed — and all their eggs were smashed — by the angry bird watcher.
“That’s the writing tool: use passive verbs to call attention to the receiver of the action.” — Roy Peter Clark
You see? The passive, in the first example, called attention to the poor birds, the receivers and the victims of the bird watcher’s violent actions.
2. The passive is a perfect political tool. Clark, in his book again, laments the language used by politicians, which is passive, and which often serves to displace responsibility. A politician might say, for example, “The bill wasn’t passed, because bad things happened. Discussions were had with Congress, and it was decided that it is not a good time to move forward with the bill.”
Instead, the politician could say: “I did not pass the bill, because I had discussions with Congress, and I decided that it is not a good time to move forward with it.” This sounds much more personal, and connotes responsibility.
In other words, the passive makes things impersonal.
And Clark, once again, gives us sage advice:
“Here’s a life tool: always apologize in the active voice.”
Tool #5: Watch those adverbs.
And lastly but not leastly: the adverbial traps that get us into trouble.
Adverbs are a bit tricky because they can enhance a verb, thereby enhancing a sentence and, potentially, the whole paragraph. Or they can drag it down, precipitously.
“At their best, adverbs spice up a verb or adjective.” — Roy Peter Clark
I hate to say it but, sure, like many things in writing, this tool might be a matter of taste. Don’t let that discourage you, though. There’s something to be learned here yet.
Hang on, I’m getting there; the patient reader profits.
If, at their best, adverbs “spice up” verbs and adjectives, then what are they like at their worst? There’s the question.
At their worst, adverbs repeatedly repeat the meaning of the modified verb or adjective, redundantly making a redundant meaning meaningfully redundant. Writing that made me cringe — literally.
The takeaway is this: adverbs, at their best, add novel meaning to a verb or adjective by modifying them enough to make the original sense different, or they add clarifying information. Sometimes that means the same thing. I’ll give an example:
“She softly punched my jaw.” Punches aren’t typically soft — that’s novel. It also clarifies — somewhat — how she punched me. If I want to clarify even more, I could combine adverbs and say, “She softly and swiftly punched my jaw.”
Don’t worry, dear reader, this is merely fiction because I’ve only once been slapped — and I was slapped sweetly.
Clark clarifies the points above:
“Remember that song ‘Killing Me Softly’? Good adverb. How about ‘Killing Me Fiercely’? Bad adverb.”
And if you’re worried that your writing contains too many adverbs, and if you think that you can’t use this tool to fix your broken sentences — fear not, and remember this:
“Adverbiage reflects the style of an immature writer, but the masters can bump their shins as well.” — Roy Peter Clark
Remember also that J.K. Rowling, the wealthiest writer in the world, is fond of adverbs, and uses them liberally. Clark remarks on this:
“If you want to make more money than the Queen of England, maybe you should use more adverbs. If your aspirations, like mine, are more modest, use them sparingly.”
Summary
There you have it. These 5 tools, if used responsibly, can fix even the most brokest of sentences. Except for that one, because I didn’t teach that tool. That’ll be for next time. In the meantime, here’s a summary list of the 5 tools that will fix your writing:
Tool #1: Begin sentences with subjects and verbs.
Tool #2: Order words for emphasis.
Tool #3: Activate your verbs.
Tool #4: Be passive-aggressive.
Tool #5: Watch those adverbs.
Conclusion
I hope these tools inspire you — as they inspired me — to continue with your craft, to take your tools from your toolbox, and to start writing.
Screw down your words because now you can better fix your broken sentences.
