The Writers Diet by Helen Sword

The Writers Diet Reviews

• 
  Simone

  To begin with, let me point out how criminally expensive this book is. I bought it from the publisher's website for $31 NZD and the book is the tiniest thing I have ever read. (Before you hate on me for my own stupidity I needed to buy the book for my Web Writing course)
  
  Now let the review proceed:
  The Writer's Diet attempts to "trim down" your own writing by giving you guidelines on how to make your text more readable. So you would assume it makes it's points clearly and uses relevant examples to keep you on the right path? It doesn't. Instead it uses poems and Shakespearean texts as examples. And that's fine if you're into that kind of stuff; but for us average Joe Bloggs we don't know what the heck Shakespeare was on about and assume he was probably on drugs during writing periods. So, that being said, I was still in the dark as to what writing is good and what's bad.
  
  If you nearly failed English (like me) this book is not for you. Nouns, adjectives, adverbs, hedgehogs... It's all incredibly overwhelming.
  The Writer's Diet preaches to the choir and closes the door to heathens.
• 
  Jing Ling Tan

  A succinct book with simple but essential tips on writing.
  
  5 sacred rules:
  
  1. Use active verbs whenever possible
  
  2. Favour concrete language over vague abstractions
  
  3. Avoid long strings of prepositional phrases
  
  4. Employ adjectives and adverbs only when they contribute something new to the meaning of a sentence
  
  5. Reduce your dependence on four pernicious 'waste words': it, this, that and there
• 
  Tara Brabazon

  Oh no. I thought this short book would be terrific. This book is wasting a great metaphor. Fit writing is a great phrase, with metaphors of exercise, dieting and training all finding a place.
  
  But this is too basic and chaotic in its argument. Page upon page I pondered the point of the prose.
  
  A fine writer who drained the power of a great idea.
• 
  mantareads

  A very useful and quick diagnostic. Sweet and sharp read.
• 
  Jonathan Ammon

  This pamphlet is worth a dollar or two and contains good advice and exercises. It is not a full book and should not be sold as one.
• 
  Emily

  Nothing beats
  The Elements of Style, but I still found reading The Writer's Diet invigorating as I ponder my own academic writing. Her tips are simple, but effective:
  
  1. VERBS // Avoid passive voice and boring "be" verbs. Instead choose active and intersting verbs. (I find myself relying on a handful of old standbys, so the obvious advice to read widely, take note of new verbs to try, etc. rang true.
  
  2. NOUNS // Avoid "nominalizations"--that is, nouns formed from verbs, adjectives, or other nouns, making them more diffuse to understand and also more wordy within sentences e.g. "students engaged" is better than "students demonstrated their engagement." Like every writing instructor, she encourages us to "show not tell" and avoid abstract nouns and concepts, which can feel like a bit of a head scratcher given the nature of academic work, but I found her "diet test" useful for tabulating how an author can make a paragraph of only abstract concepts more concise, thus opening word count for specific examples, using more concrete nouns.
  
  3. PREPOSITIONS // Vary prepositions and favor dynamic choices (e.g. over, through) over static ones (e.g. in, of). Avoid using too many prepositions in a row as they impede readability. A useful tip for diagnosing preposition overload: don't have more than 12 words between a noun and its verb.
  
  4. ADJECTIVES & ADVERBS // Use such descriptors judiciously, something akin to Chanel's rule of taking off one piece of jewelry, so that one's writing doesn't grow too flowery or amateur. Also, consider if what you actually need is a more illustrative verb, e.g. "she sauntered" rather than "she walked happily."
  
  5. WASTE WORDS // Beware it, this, that, and there, as these words can obscure meaning and/or clunk of sentences, in the case of "that."
  
  Although I wish the author didn't deploy the fat phobic metaphor of writing fitness versus fatness, I did find this very brief guide a useful tuneup to my own writing approach.
• 
  Hamish

  Short, to the point. Good book.
  
  The core idea seems to be: keep writing simple. It can be simpler than you realize. Stick to SVO structure as much as possible, using lemmas where you can. Spice up your writing with variety, rather than complexity. Create vivid mental animations via concrete nouns and specific, active verbs. Prepositions are garbage. Ad-words (adjectives and adverbs) are mostly garbage. But worst of all are demonstratives and pronouns, which invite ambiguity, fuzzy thinking, and grammatical complexity. Avoid like the plague. Similarly, starting sentences with "there is" often leads to sweeping generalizations. Similarly, avoid.
  
  Expanding on the animation idea, I suspect a good mental framework is this: you are animating a scene in your reader's brain. Each sentence should encode the transition to the next key frame. For example, "left hand moves from here to there", "door opens".
• 
  Debora

  The book is well written and I'm guess it can be useful for many to improve their writing style. It was suggested to me when I was looking for help on improving my PhD thesis, but the help I needed was not for stylistic, but organizational and content improvement - so I didn't find it as useful personally. I do like that the book has many clear good and bad examples for the writing aspects it focuses on, and it does nicely draw a parallel between writing and a diet. Pleasant and useful read. The book is not long, but coupled with the online test and time spent on thoroughly going through the exercises, it has a greater value.
• 
  Caitlin van Hoffen

  Nothing in this was particularly groundbreaking to me (actually, I'd never really thought about preposition choice before so I'll give Sword that one) but it was really interesting getting it all in one concise book with only five brief chapters. As someone who reads a lot of academic writings, I found it nice to think that maybe one day they will be easier/more interesting to read. If only they would follow these guidelines!
  
  P.S I'd hate to put this review through her online Writer's Diet test because it would probably get a pretty low score!
• 
  Jess

  I think this book has some truly helpful writing tips, but is let down by the fatphobic framework. The act of writing isn't something that needs to add more shame to people about their bodies. I'm also a bit skeptical in how useful these tips are in academic writing - true, there is a lot of florid and impenetrable academic prose, but sometimes you do need "academic ad-words" because they are specific concepts, more complex than the root noun or verb.
• 
  Jordan B

  While I personally find Hemingway-esque minimalism in writing to be overrated, I think Sword makes very good points about balance. It's not about constructing minimalistic sentences, it's about choosing high value words. Good advice! It also has a helpful online test for your writing to see how to stack up. I had Fit & Trim! Woo!
• 
  Gabby Gilliam

  This book doesn't have much novel advice to offer. It's short and to the point. Would be most beneficial to someone who's never read a book about writing. The most helpful bit for me was the online writing test that accompanies this book. It was neat to see the weak points of my writing laid out so clearly. Will definitely be helpful when self-editing.
• 
  Bruna

  It really is a "short, sharp introduction to great writing". Reminds me of the "For Dummies" books. Simple language and straight to the point. It is a great beginner's book for people who have an interest in writing.
• 
  Connor

  Truly exceptional. You know a book like this is good when it makes you aware of your inadequacies in concrete, measurable ways. “The Writer’s Diet” is wonderfully concise, but it gives you diagnostic tools instead of stuffy opinions. All I know is I need to lose some weight.
• 
  Brianna Lambert

  Really helpful short little book on five key changes to make in your writing. I appreciated the brevity of the book and all the examples. I think it's one I need to keep my notes from handy and go back to again and again!
• 
  James Traxler

  Great instruction on how to make your writing leaner and more direct.
• 
  Trina Pion

  The Writer's Diet helped me pinpoint and improve some problem areas within my writing in a clear and concise way.
• 
  Manos

  An excellent brief and concise book on academic writing. A brilliant introduction to academic writing.
• 
  Mark

  Incredibly helpful little book that serves as a great refresher, a reminder to avoid lazy and opaque writing. Practical, brief and clear.
• 
  Preethika

  It is a good book to make your language jargon
• 
  Cenk Celik

  An excellent, must-read book that I strongly recommend for group leaders in the academy.
• 
  Phuong Nguyen

  A great read! I found some helpful tips to improve my writing.
• 
  An Te

  A brief but helpful guide to writing better, in any genre. It is likely also to change how you will think. I challenge her that 'that' ought to be used only once in a sentence. Haha. Recommended.
• 
  Carolyn

  This book is going to save my life.
• 
  Ryan Shelton

  Eat it. Swallow it. Absorb it. I wish I could tattoo it on my brain.