- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
Legendary writing coach Jack Hart spent twenty-six years at the Oregonian and has taught students and professionals of all stripes, including bloggers, podcasters, and more than one Pulitzer Prize winner. Good writing, he says, has the same basic attributes regardless of genre or medium. Wordcraft shares Hart's techniques for achieving those attributes in one of the most broadly useful writing books ever written.Originally published in 2006 as A Writer's Coach, the book has been updated to address the needs of writers well beyond print journalists. Hart breaks the writing process into a series of manageable steps, from idea to polishing. Filled with real-world examples, both good and bad, Wordcraft shows how to bring such characteristics as force, brevity, clarity, rhythm, and color to any kind of writing. Wordcraft now functions as a set with the second edition of Hart's book Storycraft, on the art of storytelling, also available from Chicago.
Frequently asked questions
Information
1
Method
THE AGONY AND THE METHODOLOGY
THE BACK-END VIEW OF WRITING
I. The Writing Process
WRITING ONE STEP AT A TIME
- 1. The idea that results in a piece of writing may take days, weeks, or months forming in the writerâs mind. It probably will be shaped by discussion with othersâeditors, friends, sources. Eventually, the best ideas take the form of hypotheses that can be tested in the real world.
- 2. The information gathering can take anywhere from a few minutes to months. In the case of some Pulitzer Prizeâwinning feature stories, reporting lasted a year or more. Copywriters at ad agencies may spend months on research, interviewing, and brainstorming. Gathering string for a novel or a nonfiction book can take decades.
- 3. After the reporting, the writer has to ask, âSo what?â What, in other words, is the focus of all the data pulled together during information gathering?
- 4. The raw materialânotes, documents, database informationâmust be sorted and organized. That gives the report, essay, or story a shape, and it makes the raw material accessible during the writing.
- 5. The writer must work through the first draft.
- 6. The writerâand everybody else involved in producing the finished productâmust dive into the final tweaking and polishing.
II. Ideas
MINING THE WORLD FOR IDEAS
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Â METHOD
- 2 Â PROCESS
- 3 Â STRUCTURE
- 4 Â FORCE
- 5 Â BREVITY
- 6 Â CLARITY
- 7 Â RHYTHM
- 8 Â HUMANITY
- 9 Â COLOR
- 10 Â VOICE
- 11 Â MECHANICS
- 12 Â MASTERY
- Acknowledgments
- Selected Resources for Writers
- Index