Fifty Writing Tools

Roy Peter Clark at the Poynter Institute wrote a series of weekly columns last year outlining fifty tools for better writing. The introduction is here: Fifty Writing Tools

At times, it helps to think of writing as carpentry. That way, writers and editors can work from a plan and use tools stored on their workbench. You can borrow a writing tool at any time. And here's a secret: Unlike hammers, chisels, and rakes, writing tools never have to be returned. They can be cleaned, sharpened, and passed on.

Each week, for the next 50, I will describe a writing tool that has been useful to me. I have borrowed these tools from writers and editors, from authors of books on writing, and from teachers and writing coaches. Many come from the X-ray reading of texts I admire.

Here are the first two paragraphs fromWriting Tool #28: Writing Cinematically

Turn your notebook into a camera.
Before there was cinema, writers wrote cinematically. Influenced by the visual arts -- by portraits and tapestries -- authors have long understood how to shift their focus back and forth to capture both landscape and character.

Many authors now write books with movies in mind. But cinematic techniques can be traced to the earliest expression of English literature. A thousand years ago, the unnamed poet who wrote the epic "Beowulf" knew how to write cinematically. He could pull back the lens to establish heroic settings of land and sea; and he could move in close to see the jeweled fingers of the queen or the demonic light in a monster's eyes.

Good stuff...