Calling on all Aspiring Writers

 I have no idea where this blog will take us, but for the moment, if you are an aspiring writer of fiction and nonfiction and want to converse on any aspect of getting started in the craft of writing, sign up for this blog.  

From time to time, I will post some information which I found helpful years ago and passing it along to you might help you.

I think it is most helpful to realize that new authors have a limited opportunity to sell their work, but it is rewarding to see their work in print.  One way to do that is to submit stories to local newspapers and magazines.  More on that later.

My Writing History

 I am an engineer and have written many articles on technical subjects, and I often think back to the 1960s when the top person in our industrial organization thought writing skills of the professional staff needed improvement.  We engineers graduated from different colleges and universities and demonstrated a wide range of skills of report writing.  He introduced a training program titled Organizing Ideas, developed by Lewis Spence.

Organizing Ideas was based mainly on newspaper style writing, that is, the essence of the story in the first paragraphs, with the following paragraphs providing details and supporting material.  I guess our leader wanted us to get to the point.

This program changed how most of our technical reports and even our verbal presentations were constructed, and the change was well received.

Upon retirement, my interest in writing continued, but now I had to find some new topics of interest.  So, following my interest in nature and history, I wrote many blog articles on these subjects based in central Texas.  Many blog articles to the extent that they became the content of published books.  Books were written and self-published with topics like Noteworthy Observations, Nature and History, etc.

I lured my brother into writing and researching history and we published two books: The History of Carl School and the other titled Unstructured Time.  All are available on Amazon or from me directly.

Over a period of ten years, a reader can see the change in my writing style and my skill at the craft of writing.  Always a reminder to be made; writing is a skill and must be practiced if improvement is needed.

My interest in writing skills led me to look for books on the subject.  There are several good books to get started on skills development.  One is The Elements of Style by Strunk and White and the other is On Writing Well by William Zinsser.  The starting-out writer will find these two books to be the most basic of instruction.

More later

Sentences that read easily

 I think that I am an average reader.  Most of the sentences I create in essay writing are judged by online editing software to be at about the 10th grade reading level. Not bad, but not great in terms of sentence structure.

But never forget, sentences have to be read without excessive effort and that will vary from reader to reader.  Most editors will advise to simplify sentences rather than make them more complex---but that depends on where you as a writer create your sentences.

I have many books written by Stephen Jay Gould and I find most of the sentences in these books to be consistently hard to read.  Go any of his books on evolutionary biology, open the book at random and read any paragraph.  I find that most of the sentences are so complex and lengthy that by the time the end of the sentence is at hand, I have lost touch with the basic thought of the sentence.

Next go to the book titled Stagecoach Trail and again open it anywhere and read.  You will find a sentence structure that is far too simple to be an interesting read.  Additionally, most of the sentences are simple and short.

Both of these two example books are packed with valuable information, but they are on the extremes of sentence structure and readability.

The objective is to create sentences that are grammatically correct and of just the right level of complexity to make it easy to read and to hold the interest of the reader.

And one more thought, vary the sentence structure to make it interesting.