Reader's Reviews

100 Ways to Improve Your Writing

WRW Co-founder Gary Provost's hottest selling 'how-to' book. An easy-to-use reference that challenges you in over 100 ways to improve your writing (nonfiction and fiction).

Excerpt from the Book:

Ten Ways to Develop Style

4. Vary Sentence Length
This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of drums, the crash of cymbals – sounds that say listen to this, this is important.

So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just write words. Write music.

-- Gary Provost, 100 Ways To Improve Your Writing

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“Provost’s 100 Ways To Improve Your Writing is a fast read and a simple-to-use resource. Read it straight through to grab everything he has to offer. Then keep it handy and read certain sections as needed—like when you’re trying to get your writing moving forward again.

“Some tips date the book, like the advice to use a clean, black typewriter ribbon when preparing your manuscript. But don’t let that stop you, because the vast majority of Provost’s advice is timeless. And it’s packed full of examples that novices and pros alike will find useful.

“My favorite chapters were “Twelve Ways to Avoid Making Your Reader Hate You,” and “Seven Ways to Edit Yourself.” ...

“Like Provost the person, Provost the writer is wise and clever, making his instruction fruitful and pleasant. Pick up any of his books—or watch his video, or attend his seminars—and you’ll see that it’s so.”

—Karel Juhl

Reviews submitted to Amazon.com:

User-friendly, witty, humorous, and practical little book., January 2, 1999

Gary Provost's honesty about his own dislike for starting a writing assignment is disarming and important for students to see. Provost also makes readers comfortable with him when he admits the enormous risk inherent in writing a book about writing: He knows there must be thousands of readers just waiting to find an error in his work and to take two points off with a sharp red pencil!

Finally, Provost's section on cliches is a delight. The entire section, which warns readers to avoid cliches, is written in a series of -- what else? -- cliches. Nice touch, and funnier than a crutch (oops)!

Gary Provost is an artist, as are all good writers. The artist in Provost succeeds delightfully in this little book. 100 WAYS is Provost's Picasso-like sketch of Don Quixote with the windmill waiting in the distance to be overcome.

Buy this book, use it, enjoy it, learn from it, teach with it, keep it.

Dale M. Herder, Ph.D. Professor of English and Vice President Emeritus Lansing Community College Lansing, Michigan

So small that it's even hard to find! - but TOO helpful -, July 19, 2000

By Manny Hernandez, Bay Area, CA

Not too many times, after you've left school do you sit back and go through your writing critically, in order to improve it. I believe this book to have a quality unlike many others: it takes you by the hand, and if you give it the necessary time, and USE the tips given, you'll soon realise you're writing in ways you never thought possible. It teaches you how to be critical of your own work, how to listen to what you write, how to look at things from a different perspective (put yourself in your reader's shoes, for example). It has so many ways in which it can help yourself, and yet, with Provost's humor, you never grow tired of it.

As of today, I'm past the middle of the book, and I have mixed feelings: on one side I don't want it to be over (I've just learned SO MUCH with it...) on the other I can't help to go through the rest of it to learn all that it has to offer (I guess I'll reread it later on, anyway!)

I have not read such a small but helpful book in a long time. It might easily translate into the best spent 5 bucks ever, if you're into writing.

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Classic - Not just what he tells you, but how , July 12, 2005

By frankp93, Davenport, Connecticut

I've kept my yellowed, dog-eared copy close at hand since I bought it in the eighties. Provost's writing is direct and uncluttered and he quotes authors such as Hemmingway, Bradbury and Fitzgerald as models of effectiveness. His own examples are often hilarious - which means they'll stay with you for years. The 100 Ways are grouped by category to avoid a feeling of randomness. Sure, the book is 20 years old and you won't find a lot of techie pop-culture references in it (though somehow I doubt the author, now sadly passed on, were he writing today, would have veered much from his chosen style.) Buy it, learn from it. Keep it close by.

(Provost's later book "Make Your Words Work" expands on many of the same ideas and includes exercises. Unfortunately, it's out of print and tough to find.)