Writers On Writing (Book Reviews For The Rest Of Us)

Here's a quick read for a little refresher on how to keep your writing crisp.  The book is Bonnie Trenga's The Case of the Misplaced Modifier, subtitled: How to Solve the Mysteries of Weak Writing.  True to its claim, it does get right down to the flaws in passive voice and weak sentence structure.  Additionally, I found it fun to read, in its hard-boiled detective language. 

One the best reminders for me continues to be modifiers.  Their placement, revisions and removal sometimes cause my head to swim.  Trenga gives some fairly concrete examples of what to do if you are like me when you revise.  Or should I say, "if you are like me when you revise, you will be glad to find many clear examples offered by Trenga."

It is important to keep your craft concise.  Trenga has an entire chapter devoted to flushing out vague clauses and replacing them with tantalizing and descriptive clauses that bolster clear subjects.  She also gives examples of weak writing and shows how to tweak things just so, creating more pop from your conflicts, more depth in your prose.  By the time I completed this read, I felt as if I could approach my own writing anew.  It had been a long time since I paused to consider active sentence structure.

Sure there are likely other, more current books out there, but I found The Case of the Misplaced Modifier to be just what I needed as a light refresher.  It also serves as a pretty good reference book for a quick change.  I'm sure we have all come across a sentence or phrase in our writing that doesn't sit quite right.  Trenga's book has afforded me a nose to help sniff out the "culprit" and directions on how to make the necessary corrections.

I give it 4 out of 5 "hoorays!"