After successfully completing a six month short-fiction course last year, I am working on improving my writing in 2020. This is one of the books that I have used to kickstart this learning journey.
Le Guin has rewritten this seminal guide to improving your writing craft. Each chapter has an example and then exercises to help you practice what you have learnt. It’s a wonderful book and I would recommend it if you want to improve the quality of your work. She gives the reader recommendations on how to use the book as an individual or within a shared environment such as a writers group.
The book is broken down into ten chapters that cover the fundamentals of good writing:
The Sound of Your Writing
Punctuation and Grammar
Sentence Length and Complex Syntax
Repetition
Adjectives and Adverbs
Verbs: Person and Tense
Point of View and Voice
Changing Point of View
Indirect Narration, or What Tells
Crowding and Leaping