My friend Alex McNab writes a blog for writers in Fairfield County as I do, but we don’t seem to cover the same turf, which is why I subscribe to his blog.. I particularly liked this recent post, which suggests several different sources for particular writing tips – sources you may not have thought of. Alex helps run (free) writing groups at the Fairfield Public Library, and is working on revisions of his own novel. He turned to fiction after a career in journalism, including being the Editor of Tennis magazine, and writing for The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Golf Digest and Westport Magazine. His nonfiction books include The Tennis Doctor and, as co-author, Arthur Ashe on Tennis. So when he writes, I listen.
Here’s what he had to say about looking for writing help on the web:
Type “writing advice” into Google’s search box, hit the Return key and in a few seconds you’ll be looking at the first page of a list that goes on for “about 284,000,000 results.” That’s a lot of how-to about the writer’s craft.
As an old-school print magazine veteran, I’d like to suggest you monitor the digital offerings of four legacy publications for a while.
First, check out The Wall Street Journal’s weekly Word Craft piece. Every Saturday, a different well-known writer contributes an essay on a different aspect of storytelling. Some recent examples: Jeffery Deaver on writing thrillers, Hilary Mantel on historical dialogue and Carol Edgarian on desire as the driving force of fictional characters.
Second, stop in at Draft, a blog at The New York Times’ “Opinionator” area. Written by different grammarians, journalists, historians, novelists and others, it covers everything from punctuation to the value of diagramming sentences…
You can read the rest of the article here: