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Writing Tools

Home > Reporting, Writing & Editing > Writing Tools
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Roy Peter Clark
Roy Peter Clark provides tools for your writing toolbox.
Posted by Roy Peter Clark at 12:00 AM on Mar. 17, 2010
I've learned two words that have helped me organize my writing. One is "coherence." The other is "cohesion."

The writer achieves, and the reader is meant to experience, coherence when the big parts of a piece of writing fit nicely -- like a beautiful handmade piece of furniture. A story may be organized by logic, by argument, by the movement of space or time or by the elements of content or theme. In a coherent story you may not even notice the work has parts, though there is nothing wrong with a reader recognizing that the poem is a sonnet. But when a part of the story or report makes you scratch your head and wonder, "How did that get in there?" it may be a sign of incoherence.

The writer can check for coherence by indexing the parts of the text, especially the beginning, middle and end, and then write subtitles for each part, like this...

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ALSO BY ROY PETER CLARK
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Advice from Dr. Ink
Three Little Words

OTHER BOOKS BY ROY PETER CLARK



Mar. 10, 2010

How Humor Can Help Make Your Writing More Powerful
Posted by Roy Peter Clark at 12:01 AM on Mar. 10, 2010
In my book "Writing Tools" I make the argument that a writer should know "when to back off and when to show off." The more serious the topic, I argued, the more the writer should soft-pedal the language. The less serious the topic, the more the writer can twist and shout.

Then, one day, I confronted a writing task that demanded I turn my own advice upside down. I wanted, more than anything, to write a funny essay about colon cancer. This impulse was inspired by my pastor, Fr. Robert Gibbons, who underwent emergency surgery after a colonoscopy, the most reliable test now available to detect the polyps that can turn deadly.

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Mar. 4, 2010

X-Ray Shows How Narrative Approach Sets This Crime Story Apart
Posted by Roy Peter Clark at 10:22 AM on Mar. 4, 2010

When I like a newspaper story, I really like it. And when I like it, I want other people to like it as much as I do. So I'll enshrine it in my personal story hall of fame. Because my job is to encourage aspiring writers, I share the stories I like with hundreds, sometimes thousands of others. After a time, a story can take on a life of its own, so that I'll bump into it on the Internet or in a newsroom in the Dakotas or a classroom in Baton Rouge.

I've got another story to share with you, and I really, really like this one.

It appeared in Poynter's St. Petersburg Times on Thursday, Feb. 25, on the front of the local section. It described how two women got their expensive cell phones stolen at an amusement park along with their efforts to get them back.

Read more for my X-ray analysis of why this story works.


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Recent Comments:
I like this story and the analysis Congrats to this reporter. Well done. Nice detail. Good pacing.... More.
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