Writing Tools

In most cases, good is good enough. But, on occasion, a writer can move from good to great with the application of a couple of handy-dandy writing tools.

Case in point is a single paragraph written by Andrew Meacham of The St. Pete Times. It comes from an excellent obituary of Elizabeth Haslam, 94, one of America's great booksellers. I knew Mrs. Haslam for many years, and the best thing I can say about Andrew's story is that it captured her for me and included interesting details I had never seen or heard before -- including that Mrs. Haslam learned to scuba dive in her 80s and once had to be airlifted "after contact with a poisonous blowfish." Cool.

Here is Andrew's good paragraph, designed to distinguish Haslam's Bookstore from the cookie-cutter chains:


This good paragraph has much that I admire: variation of sentence length, comparison and contrast, names and titles, an inventory of difference, and, of course, that wonderful alley cat. What feral feline would dare venture into a Borders or Barnes & Noble?

But can I turn this good paragraph into a great one? To work such magic, I'll use two of my favorite writing tools. The first is Tool #14: "Get the name of the dog." This reporting tool reminds the writer to dig for details, and what applies to dogs also applies to alley cats. So Andrew informed me that the name of the cat was Beowulf, apt for a ferocious warrior turned bookstore mascot. (He had it in his notebook and had included it in an early draft.)

So now I have the name of the cat. But where will I put it? My answer derives from Tool #2: "Order words for emphasis." As I look at the original good paragraph, I notice that the least significant word, "Monday," appears in the most emphatic location -- at the end.

Applying these two tools, I now offer this revision of the last sentence, which I believe turns a good paragraph into a great one:


Get the name of the cat, and put it where readers can see it.