Get people talking. Learn to ask questions that will elicit answers about what is most interesting or vivid in their lives. Nothing so animates writing as someone telling what he thinks or what he does - in his own words. His own words will always be better than your words, even if you are the most elegant stylist in the land.

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

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.

Thought is action in rehearsal.

Not every oak has to be gnarled, every detective hard-bitten. The adjective that exists solely as a decoration is a self-indulgence for the writer and an obstacle for the reader.

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

Writing is linear and sequential; Sentence B must follow Sentence A, and Sentence C must follow Sentence B, and eventually you get to Sentence Z. The hard part of writing isn't the writing; it's the thinking. You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: What does the reader need to know next?