As written in the previous post mastering the art of writing is precious and lucrative. This skill is in high demand. With more skills, you will increase your income and make your portfolio more attractive. Writing skill will enable you to write blog posts, articles or even courses in the form of ebooks. If you are a technical person focus on nonfiction writing otherwise fiction if you are a creative type of person.
This blog post encompasses both fiction and nonfiction writing skills. Its resources mostly focused on the ability to write several pages daily, mastering English usage, and spotting basic Grammar errors easily.
You can write for other people or you can write on your own blog, website or write in your LinkedIn account to improve your visibility and make you account more professional with articles related to your field.
I – The Element of Style (book)
Is a classic prescriptive American English writing style guide which is nearly 100 years old that Time Magazine listed as “one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923”. It is divided in:
-Usage rules
-Principle of composition
-Words and Expressions Commonly Misused
-Words Commonly Misspelled
In this book the rules are explained with examples, find below some of the Element of Style guidelines:
-Make the paragraph the unit of composition: one paragraph to each topic
-As a rule, begin each paragraph with a topic sentence; end it in conformity with the beginning
-Use the active voice
-Put statements in positive form
-Omit needless words
This book’s rules are seen as standards for writing. In fact, I have come across job description for writers that say that “ The Element of Style Should be well grasped” in other words reading and putting into practice the books rules are a must do for any writer.
II- Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content (book)
Is a Wall Street Journal bestselling book written by Ann Handley who is cited in Forbes as the most influential woman in Social Media and ranked by ForbesWoman as one of the top 20 female bloggers.
This book is about how to create content, publishing it and attracting and retaining customers. Ann Handley offers actionable advice on a strategy of creating content to reach wanted results.
The book can be summed up in these main points. This section is derived from this source
1- To be strategic that is to say to ask the five w’s of journalism:
–Who are you readers and your customers? You need to dig deep and know who you are targeting as an audience.
–What be detailed and specific and be clear about your goal.
–Where what is the next step, where are you heading to.
–Why are you writing this content, why do you think it is important for your readers.
–When should you connect with your audience and what is the order of the event in the piece of writing.
2- Think holistically
3- Excel in the art of storytelling
4- Help your users and be caring
5- Hone your skills (curation, research, SEO, social media…)
6- To write better think better
III- On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (book)
Written by the bestselling author Stephen King of all time where he explains the craft of writing. Just to comprehend the amount of Stephen King success his net worth is 400 Million USD. This book is a memoir and lessons for writers at the same time. Stephen thinks that real writer does it for the love of writing more than for money.
Stephen King created writing toolbox to explain the do and don’t and the basics of the craft of writing. This tool box that is summed up here it encompasses (vocabulary, grammar, paragraph, description, dialogue, and theme).
IV- Grammarly (Desktop app and extension)
Grammarly comes as an extension to your browser to correct you writing mistakes, it reviews your grammar, spelling and punctuation errors. Besides, it explains why you are wrong to write in such a way. Thus, you may know better the rules.
They have also created MS office integration to review your language directly in MS word.
Grammarly is practical and very often superior to MS office proofreader. You can download office add in here.
Conclusion
On this second part, I offered the best resources I could find and that I have experience with. The books I picked are both informative and motivating. The app I chose is easy to use and helping.