Tuesday’s Writing Tip for Authors

Whenever my book coaching clients ask me to recommend a “how to” book about writing, I’m always torn between Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, and The Essential Don Murray: Lessons from America’s Greatest Writing TeacherClients, edited by Thomas Newkirk and Lisa Marks.

Both books represent the pinnacle of practical advice and writing style; both are based on years of writing and teaching experience, both respect the angst which authors frequently go through while writing their book.

More important, instead of abstractions about “creativity” and “inspiration,” both books stress the importance of a step-by-step writing process that can be learned and adapted by anyone who wants to write better and write more.

Don Murray’s 5-step writing process

Tool Number 50 in Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools, which he dedicated to Don Murray, is “Own the Tools of Your Craft.” In that chapter, he describes  the turning point in his thinking and writing that took place in 1983, when Don drew a simple 5-step diagram on a chalkboard:

1. Idea
2. Collect
3. Focus
4. Draft
5. Clarify

Clark then summarizes the steps:

The writer conceives an idea, collects things to support it, discovers what the work is really about, attempts a first draft, and revises in the quest for greater clarity.

Clark then describes how Murray’s “simple blueprint” changed his writing life in 4 sentences that, I’ll bet, every author can relate to:

Until then, I thought great writing was the work of magicians. Like most readers, I encountered work perfected and published. I’d hold a book in my hand, flip through its pages, feel its weight, admire its design, and stand awestruck at its seeming perfect. This was magic, the work of wizards - -people different from you and me.

If you’re “in awe” of the writing talents of the authors you most enjoy writing, I encourage you to explore either Writing Tools or The Essential Don Murray–or, preferably, both. (I also highly-recommend Jack Hart’s A Writer’s Coach: The Complete Guide to Writing Strategies that Work.) You won’t be disappointed with any of them.) If you’ve read one, or more, of these books, please share your opinions of them as comments. To me, they’re the top books in terms of helping authors create a “universal” structured approach to writing.