Helen Sword, "The Writer's Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose" (U Chicago Press, 2016)

The University of Chicago Press Podcast · Aug 6, 2021 · 49m

Helen Sword, writing champion, brings us into the word gym. Or maybe kitchen. Either way, The Writer's Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose (U Chicago Press, 2016) is a short, sharp introduction to great writing based around 5 principles:

--use active verbs whenever possible;

--favour concrete language over vague abstractions;

--avoid long strings of prepositional phrases;

--employ adjectives and adverbs only when they contribute something new to the meaning of a sentence;

--reduce your dependence on four pernicious “waste words”: it, this, that, and there.

There are examples of the good - William…