Reddit reviews Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose
We found 3 Reddit comments about Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Three Rivers Press CA
As an analytical person, I too have always found the advice 'Just read more!' to get better at the technical, nearly formulaic parts of writing - like grammar, punctuation, and syntax - confusing.
There are some great books out there on writing mechanics and style.
My favourite three are:
All three are very readable and much less stuffy than Strunk and White's classic Elements of Style.
Blended linguistics and creative writing background here. My suggestion would be to start looking into research areas like sociolinguistics (related to literature), discourse analysis, pragmatics, and narrative analysis. More particularly, I would highlight the field of stylistics. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I'll direct you here, here, and here for some background on stylistics. From what I've encountered in both linguistic and creative writing texts, you have WAY more pedagogical insight into the writing process coming from the linguistic side.
There are some books like Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective / Wicked Good Prose and the ubiquitous Strunk and White's, but if you're looking for more of the creative writing overlap from a deeper linguistic analysis, I'd look at the references above. You might also check out work in forensic linguistics.
Pick this up: http://www.amazon.com/Sin-Syntax-Craft-Wicked-Prose/dp/0385346891/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
It's a fun read and covers most of the basics.