You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: what does the reader need to know next?

Tips can make someone a better writer but not necessarily a good writer. That's a larger package - a matter of character. Golfing is more than keeping the left arm straight. Every good golfer is a complex engine that runs on ability, ego, determination, discipline, patience, confidence, and other qualities that are self-taught. So it is with writers and all creative artists. If their values are solid their work is likely to be solid.

Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual - it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain.

A clear sentence is no accident.

The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead.

Every time you look at a blank piece of paper, you're doing something new. You have to step onto that blank territory and remind yourself the sky didn't fall in the last time you wrote. Writing is a question of overcoming your fears-and everybody has them.

But nothing has replaced the writer. He or she is still stuck with the same old job of saying something that other people will want to read.