Word Up! How to Write Powerful Sentences and Paragraphs (And Everything You Build from Them)

Lots of books can strengthen your writing. Few also leave you smiling. You're looking at one.

You may write blog posts, e-books, e-mails, executive summaries, e-zine articles, hospital-hallway signs, presentations, proposals, lab reports, letters to the editor, love letters, lunch-bag notes, movie reviews, news stories, novels, online help, plays, poems, proposals, recipes, reference manuals, scholarly critiques, speeches, term papers, tweets, user-interface text, video scripts, web pages, or white papers.

You may write for a million readers or for one. You may use a pen, a typewriter, a wiki, or an XML authoring tool. You may be a grammar snob, or you may think that "grammar snobs are great big meanies." You may write because something within you says you can't not write--or because your boss says you can't not write. No matter what you write, or how or why, you and every other writer have two things in common: you use words, and you want someone to want to read them.

How do you get people to want to read your words? Know your subject. Know your audience. And write powerfully. This book can help you write powerfully.