Writing is a powerful search mechanism—even when unpublished—that helps you understand your life’s narrative. It’ll help you work through some of life’s hardest knocks: loss, grief, addiction, illness, failure and help you find understanding and solace.

Writing is an act of ego1. Just admit it and use its energy to propel you. Writing is also hard. You need to jump start your writing session just like a public speaker or a ballerina performs a ritual before their performance. Your writing ritual should induce among other things an ingredient of enjoyment. The reader must think that you’re having a good time even if you’re not. If you’re unable to do this for today’s writing session, revise today’s work tomorrow when you’re in a better mindset. But do today’s work anyway. Improving is a matter of producing words daily.

Writing is of two parts: carpentry and identity. Carpentry is your responsibility to the reader: grammar, syntax, simplicy, clarity, brevity. Keep improving on these and put in the hard work of materializing them. Identity is your personality. It’s showing who you are honestly, vulnerably, and humanely with words. Sometimes called style. It is not something you can decorate your writing with after you’ve finished it. It’s a core part of every sentence that you write. You don’t owe anything to the reader with your identity.

Remember this when afraid of writing (or any other endeavor): Every reduction of the unfamiliar will reduce your fear2.

My Current Focus

Updated: 2025-03-27. The amount of things to pay attention to is overwhelming. Below are items that I plan to focus on and when I feel like I’ve mastered them, I’ll replace them.

  1. Make high level decisions before starting the work. See Core Decisions Checklist below.
  2. Clear clutter from each sentence. See Brevity Checklist below.
  3. Make every sentence clear. See Clarity Checklist below.
  4. Introduce em-dashes into my writing3.
  5. Regularty take a look at “Author’s Correction” at the end. It incorporates most of what the book teaches.

My current way of writing is to write a draft that I like—I might have to do multiple—then rewrite every sentence using the checklist above.

Checklists

As I focus on an aspect, I turn it into a checklist to help me easily apply it to my writing. I build the checklists from the raw notes below when I need them.

Core Decisions Checklist

Before you begin your writing, you need to make some fundamental decisions. They will establish the unity of your work. Unity is the anchor of good writing and communicates confidence to your readers: the author is in charge here.

  1. What ONE provocative thought do I want to bring through to the reader after he’s done reading? This decision affects several others like tone and attitude and will help with what route you should follow and what destination you hope to reach.
  2. How much do I want to cover? Reduce, reduce, reduce. The less the better. Find the slice that energizes you.
  3. Unity of pronoun: first person (participant), second person (advice, teaching) or third person (reporter).
  4. Unity of tense: popular past tense? Workable present tense? Pick one as the principle tense and use the past, present and hypothetical future when needed, but always come back to your principle tense.
  5. Unity of tone: formal, casual, earnest, understated, or humorous (amongst others).
  6. Capacity: reporter, provider of information, average man.
  7. Style: Impersonal and reportorial, personal, but formal, personal and casual.
  8. Attitude: detached, amused, judgemental, involved or ironic.

Brevity Checklist

  1. Remove all words that are not doing any work.
  2. Remove redundant adverbs and adjectives e.g. Radio blared loudly, Yellow daffodils.
  3. Shorten long words: ‘first’ instead of ‘initial’. ‘Do’ instead of ‘implement’.
  4. Remove clichés and replace with your own metaphors or more precise words e.g. Top brass: presidents, VPs, managers, owners, etc..
  5. Clutter test:
    • Is every word doing new work?
    • Can any thought be expressed with more economy?
    • Is anything pompous, pretentious or faddish?
    • Are you hanging on to something because you think it’s beautiful?

There’s a list of clutter examples in the Notes section below.

Clarity Checklist

  1. Convert passive construction to active construction e.g. “The common reaction is incredulous laughter” becomes “Most people just laugh with disbelief.”.
  2. Disambiguate sentences that can be read in multiple ways 4
  3. Unify tense in a sentence.
  4. If shifts exist-in subject, tense, tone, emphasis, time, place, mood-that they have been **clearly demarcated between one sentence and the next.
  5. Clarify who is talking to whom when action takes place.
  6. Make sure sentence B, logically follows sentence A.
  7. Clarity test:
    • What am I trying to say?
    • Then ask, have I said it?
    • Is it clear for someone encountering the subject for the first time?

Caveat: Don’t let the material control your unity. Your decisions should control it. But as you’re writing, you might find out that the writing is leading you into a better path than what you’ve decided on. Don’t be a prisoner to your plan. Change your strategy. Go back to the material that is using the former decisions and rewrite it to match the better unity.

Notes

Your process of writing doesn’t matter as long as it produces words. Even your subject matter doesn’t matter. What matters is writing that shows your humanity to the reader: what drew you to the subject? What baggage are you bringing along? How did it change you?

Simple writing is stripping every sentence down to its simplest form. Good form checklist:

  1. Check usage of words you’re not sure about.
  2. Alter sequence when necessary: improve narrative by moving timely information to the right place: should I have let the reader know this earlier in the sentence?
  3. Appeal to the eye: vary sentence and paragraph length.
  4. Appeal to the ear: improve rhythm after reading with your ear.

Bad work characteristics:

  1. Loses the reader.
  2. Confuses the readers.
  3. Bores the readers.
  4. Fails at engaging the reader from beginning to end.

Be grateful for any word, sentence, paragraph, or section that you can remove or shorten. Clutter removes simplicity.

Clutter Examples

  1. At this point in time, present time, presently, currently, at this juncture of maturization: now
  2. Head up, face up, free up, order up: unnecessary propositions
  3. Personal friend, personal doctor, personal feelings
  4. Experiencing
  5. Depressed socioeconomic area, waste-disposal personnel: political correctness gone amok
  6. Negative cash-flow position
  7. Assistance: help
  8. Numerous: many
  9. Facilitate: ease
  10. Individual: man or woman
  11. Remainder: rest
  12. Initial: first
  13. Implement: do
  14. Sufficient: enough
  15. Fire off: send
  16. Attempt: try
  17. Referred to as: called
  18. With the possible exception of: except
  19. Due to the fact that: because
  20. He totally lacked the ability: he couldn’t
  21. Until such time: until
  22. For the purpose of: for
  23. Paradigm, parameter, prioritize, potentialize: jargon
  24. I might add, it should be pointed out, it is interesting to note.
  25. Tall skyscraper: known fact
  26. Smile happily: redundancy
  27. A bit, sort of, in a sense.
  28. A whole sentence that repeats the previous one in a different way.
  29. Greats, notables: adjectives used as nouns.
  30. to host, enthuse, emote (latter two are nouns chopped off), beef up, put teeth into (latter two are padded): nouns used as verbs.5
  31. Shouldered his way, only to be met, crashing into his face, waging a lonely war, corruption that is rife, sending shock waves, NY Finest: clichés.

Stripping down your prose to the essential improves your carpentry. It does not hinder your style. Your style is when you’re being yourself with relaxed confidence using good carpentry. Your style is when you are not trying to impress nor indulge the reader.

You owe the reader good carpentry. But you do not owe him your identity. You are using good carpentry in order to show your identity clearly. If the reader leaves because a sentence is illogical, it’s on you. But if he leaves because he doesn’t think you’re funny, it’s on him. You owe yourself your honest identity: that’s what it means to say you are writing to yourself.

Do not go back to ‘style’ your writing after you had done it. Style, is not something you can add like lipstick. Your style is in your DNA, so write honestly and without and agenda and your style will show.

Words are the atoms of writing. To write well, you must:

  1. Know the gradiations between synonyms: “cajole,” “wheedle,” “blandish” and “coax”6. Use dictionary, Roget’s Thesaurus, and thesaurus.
  2. Imitate a master that you like. Pick a model and ask why did they use this word? Why did they write this sentence like so? How can I write like that?
  3. Try to write with your ears and always read your drafts aloud. Pay attention to rhyming, alliteration, cadence and sonority of each sentence7.
    • Reassemble the sentence so it ends with a phrase that momentarily lingers.
    • Choose one word after the other because I’m after a certain emotional effect: serene v.s tranquil
    • Gain variety by reversing the order of the sentence
    • Substitute a word that has freshness and oddity. That is oblique, not ‘true and tested’.
    • Alter the length of sentences with the occasional short ones. Short sentences could leave a strong punch.

Usage is a gray area. Only use a word if it fills a real need and there’s no better word to use. If a word is jargon don’t use it. Examples of bad usage:

  • Notables
  • Greats
  • Upcoming
  • -wise suffix like health-wise.
  • Rather unique
  • myself as in: she invited Sam and myself to dinner.
  • ‘Too’ when substituted for ‘very’
  • Input and feedback: ideas and what he thinks of them.
  • Verbalize

The lead is marketing for your work. It hooks the reader and pushes him to want to know more. The most important sentence in your lead is the first one. It induces the reader to go to the next one. The next is the one after. Lead length could be from zero (jump into story) to several paragraphs, depending on your material and audience. Good lead characteristics:

  • Captures reader immediately by letting them know upfront what’s in it for them.
  • Uses freshness, novelty, paradox, humor, surprise, unusual idea, interesting fact, a question to keep reader going.
  • Provides hard details about why piece was written and why he must read it, but not too much, just enough to keep interest piqued.
  • Build up paragraph by paragraph each amplifying the one that precedes it.
  • Last sentence of each paragraph must entice reader to read next paragraph. Use surprise, humor,…, see list above.

But remember, the sole purpose of the lead is to hook the reader. If you’ve done that without any of the above, you’re good.

Bad lead characteristics:

  • Future archaeologist
  • Visitor from Mars
  • Cute event that just happened to happen: one day, not long ago…
  • Conveniently recent Saturday afternoon: …when he saw something rising out of the ground.
  • Have-in-common lead
  • Breakfast-to-bed: the alarm rang before sunrise

The ending is as important as the lead. It’s how you leave your reader feeling. Some tips on endings:

  • Do not use the high school structure of Lead, Middle, End (I, II, III) where III summarizes the whole article. When you catch yourself writing: “In sum, it can be noted that…”, “What insights then have we been able to glean…”.
  • Let the ending be a bit abrupt, but exactly right. It should be surprising.
  • If you’d like a sense of symmetry, you may touch on the beginning of the piece. A quotation works well here.
  • If you’re ready to stop, stop. Don’t push the ending. The reader will feel you’re getting bored.

Verbs are the most important of your tools. Use active ones, unless there’s no comfortable way to get around using a passive verb8. Short and precise are better than long and ambiguous. Make active verbs activate your sentences, and avoid the kind that need an appended preposition to complete their work9.

Most adverbs are unnecessary. Radio blared loudly. Clenched their teeth tightly. Effortlessly easy. Slightly spartan. Totally flabbergasted. Grinned widely. All the previous examples show redundancy. Remove the adverbs and we haven’t lost any meaning. Also watch out for decidedly, arguably and their cousins.

Most adjectives are unnecessary. When they exist solely as decoration they’re self indulgent to the writer and a hindrance to the reader. And when redundant, they’re unnecessary: Yellow daffodils. Brownish dirt. By habit: Stately elms. Firsky kittens. Hard-bitten detectives. Sleepy lagoons. Use them when they’re doing real work: “He looked at the gray sky and the black clouds and decided to sail back to the harbor.”

Prune out the small words that qualify how you feel and how you think and what you saw: “a bit,” “a little,” “sort of,” “kind of,” “rather,” “quite,” “very,” “too,” “pretty much,” “in a sense” and dozens more. They dilute your style and your persuasiveness. Don’t be kind of bold, be bold.

Use the period to save you from long sentence that are doing more than they reasonably can. Like for example expressing two dissimilar thoughts.

Use the dash in two ways. One is to amplify or justify in the second part of the sentence a thought you stated in the first part. “We decided to keep going—it was only 100 miles more and we could get there in time for dinner.” The other use involves two dashes, which set apart a parenthetical thought within a longer sentence. “She told me to get in the car—she had been after me all summer to have a haircut—and we drove silently into town.”

Be prudent in your use of exclamation points, especially when being humorous, they ruin the surprise.

Alert the reader of any mood change from the previous sentence as soon as you can. Use: but, yet, however, nevertheless, still, instead, thus therefore, meanwhile, now, later, today, subsequently and more…Start the new sentence with “but” when shifting direction. If you need some relief from ‘but’, use ‘however’, however don’t put it at the start or end of sentence, but rather as soon as you can. “Yet” works like “but”, but its meaning is closer to nevertheless. Either of those words at the beginning of a sentence can replace a summary of what the reader was told and make your prose tighter: “Despite the fact that all these dangers had been pointed out to him, he decided to go.” becomes “Yet he decided to go” or “Nevertheless he decide to go.” The time temporal ones, like now, meanwhile, etc…are for orienting the reader about the time frame: “Later I found out why.”, “Now I know better”. Always alert the reader of a change from the previous sentence.

Which and that: always use “that” unless it makes your meaning ambiguous. If your sentence needs a comma to achieve its precise meaning, it probably needs “which”. “That” is used to identify the specific item under discussion-from many items-, while “which” qualifies the only item under discussion.A high proportion of “which” usage narrowly describes, or identifies, or locates, or explains or otherwise qualify the phrase that preceded the comma. “Take the shoes that are in the closet.” (there are many shoes we’re discussing, but the ones in the closet), “Take the shoes, which are in the closet.” (only one pair is being discussed.) More examples: The house, which has a red roof, The store, which is called Bob’s Hardware, The Rhine, which is in Germany

Concept nouns are mostly bad. It’s when you use nouns to express a concept instead of active verbs: “The common reaction is incredulous laughter.”, “Bemused cynicism isn’t the only response to the old system.”, “The current campus hostility is a symptom of the change”. Notice how these sentences have no people in them. That’s weak. Now look at “Most people just laugh with disbelief.”, “Some people respond to the old system by turning cynical; others say…”, “It’s easy to notice the change-you can see how angry all the students are.”.

Creeping nounism: multiple nouns used where one noun or one verb would do: “Nobody goes broke now.”, “It no longer rains”.

Don’t overstate. Life has enough funny and unusual situation that when described with good English, they’ll do the job. “The living room looked as if an atomic bomb had gone off there”. Weak.

Problematic sentences can usually be solved by completely getting rid of them. It’s the last solution that comes to mind when in a jam. Ask, “Do I need it at all?” Probably not. Remove it and move on.

Try to think in paragraph units where each has its own integrity of content and structure. Try to keep them short-too many long paragraphs will scare the reader. But also a succession of monotonously sized ones will bore him. Make it visually inviting with a good balance of alternations.

Writing well is an evolving process, not a finished product. Rewriting is where good writing happens because a newly hatches sentence is always filled with hurdles to clarity. Tinker with the sentences using the checklists in these notes. When the reader has a narrative flow he can follow with no trouble from start to finish, you’re done. Rewriting here is referring to improving a draft that you like. Full rewrite has its place as well. Rewriting is NOT going back and adding ‘style’ to your prose.

Write about what you care about. There’s no subject you’re not allowed to write about. No area in life is stupid to someone who takes it seriously. No subject you don’t have permission to write about.

Don’t annoy your readers with over-explaining-by telling them something they already know or can figure out. Try not to use words like “surprisingly”, “predictably” and “of course”. Trust your material.

Your voice is your identity as a writer. The reader will know it’s you whether your write about tango or about technology. Do not fit your voice into the subject, rather write about the subject in your voice. You may help your voice come out by paying attention to the following:

  • Breeziness: it’s when you ingratiate to the reader. You talk to him in an overly friendly manner if you want his approval or in an overly pretentious manner if you think they’re high browed. Instead, picture yourself having a conversation with a friend who you respect and that you know that he respects you.
  • Clichés are the enemy of good taste. They condense ideas into metaphor. Shed them and explain the idea in your own fresh words. You will inevitably introduce cliches and will remove the in your rewriting. Top brass instead of official, execs, chairmen, presidents, directors, or managers.
  • Imitate authors who you enjoy and you think have good taste. Don’t worry about sounding like them. Eventually you will shed that skin.
  • Generally, taste uses words that have surprise, strength and precision. You use mostly short words with two syllables, some with three. More than that only if you have to. And much less, long words of Latin origin that end with ‘ion’. You rarely use vague words, instead you use real everyday words like: leaves, wind, frost, air, evening, earth, comfort, soil, labor, breath, body, justice, courage, peace, land, rites, home.
  • Remember that taste and eloquence are deeply rooted with who you are. Go with what seems inevitable in your own heritage and embrace it.

Thinking about the finished article or book will impede your writing because writing is an emergent activity. Parts of it are best left to be discovered during the writing. There are some decisions to be made before starting, but those are tools of carpentry. Things not to think about: what will my audience think of this? Will this be published? How will I think about this in the future? How many sales will this bring me?

Reread chapter 23 for a full example of how author thinks about his articles.

Some structural decisions to think about:

  1. Pick a subject or sub-subject that energizes you. When a book or article idea comes along, don’t rush into it. Let it linger, sleep on it for a while. Until you have a clear idea of why you want to write about it.
  2. Reduce whatever you decide to write about to its essential point. At first you’ll want to include a lot and that’s common. Fight that urge. It’ll make your writing lighter and more energized.
  3. Pick an angle for your article: personal, rational, ideal, or philosophical?
  4. Get on a plane and live so you have something to write about. You’ll always be nervous doing so and getting on that plane, but there’s no way around it.
  5. If you write your story in a form of a quest-you have a problem, you’ve figured out how to solve it, it changed you-you’ll have a greater chance of writing something that will connect with people.

Some tactical decisions:

  1. After your lead is done, you can take a more relaxed tone. Don’t be surprised if your lead alone takes as much time as the whole article to write.
  2. Aim for declarative sentences where each has one idea. Don’t be afraid to break complicated ones into shorter ones.
  3. Use quotes when you can, not necessarily from interviews, but from any research material have like brochures, ads, emails, announcements, or flyers.
  4. Replace dull facts with a name or a metaphor that will bring them to life.
  5. Improve weak verbs with short active ones. Same for adjectives and nouns.
  6. Visually break up your work into phases when it makes since, like three *’s to notify the reader of a change in chronology (flashback), or subject or emphasis or tone.
  7. The plethora of material you’ve collected and studied in your research is not lost even though you’d be only used a small percentage of it. It’s not lost because it remains in your writing as an intangible shadow that makes the reader know or feel that you know more about the subject than you’ve put in. You’re just choosing the best.
  8. Use humor mostly to keep yourself amused more than the reader. You’re having fun. If they laugh, good. If not, oh well.
  9. Moderately making yourself gullible- or downright stupid- gives the reader the enormous pleasure of feeling superior.
  10. Strike bonds with your fellow reader by bringing in analogies or references from your other interests. Create more resolution and resonance in your work.
  11. Use the exclamation point sparingly if at all.
  12. Use surprising words that are not long and not fancy and not pretentious.
  13. Use hooks at the end of paragraphs and section to propel the readers into the next.
  14. You are under no obligation to use the actual shape of events that transpired in real life. You don’t have to reconstruct everything the way it happened. End when it’s time to stop. Organize things in a way that appeals to you.

Some useful writing devices:

  1. humor
  2. anecdote
  3. paradox
  4. unexpected quotation
  5. powerful facts
  6. outlandish details
  7. an elegant arrangement of words
  8. purposeful circuitous approach-an indirect, roundabout, or meandering way of getting to a point-

On writing memoirs:

  • In this form, be you more than any other type of writing. Don’t commit to an act of writing. Readers are looking for your remembered experiences and emotions.
  • You can write it from two points of view, from the current you looking back at the young you or from the young you of how you felt then. Pick one, don’t mix the two. They are different kinds of memoirs.
  • Don’t worry about hurting other people’s feelings. Write your memoir as if you didn’t care, then come back to decide on whether you should edit anything out.
  • Reduce. Pick one main point, one story, one quest, just one essential thing that will guide your memoir.
  • What’s most important is not what you did, but how what you did has changed you.
  • One way to go about creating material for your memoirs is: everyday, write a complete piece from what is most vivid in your memory. Then file it away. Don’t go through old notes and such. Once you have enough full pieces, a pattern will start to emerge and you’ll know what kind of memoir you’re going to have.

A good example that encompasses everything we’ve seen so far:

Author’s Correction

Original version

There used to be a time when neighbors took care of one another, remembered. It no longer seemed to happen that way, however. He wondered if it was because everyone in the modern world was so busy. It occurred to him that people today have so many things to do that they don’t have time for old-fashioned friendship. Things didn’t work that way in America in previous eras. And he knew that the situation was very different in other countries, as he recalled from the years when he lived in villages in Spain and Italy. It almost seemed to him that as people got richer and built their houses farther apart they isolated themselves from the essentials of life. And there was another thought that troubled him. His friends had deserted him when he needed them most during his recent illness. It was almost as if they found him guilty of doing something shameful. He recalled reading somewhere about societies in primitive parts of the world in which sick people were shunned, though he had never heard of any such ritual in America.

Author’s suggestions for improvements:

There used to be a time when neighbors took care of one another, remembered. [Put “he remembered” first to establish reflective tone.] It no longer seemed to happen that way, however. [The contrast supplied by “however” must come first. Start with “But.” Also establish America locale.] He wondered if it was because everyone in the modern world was so busy. [All these sentences are the same length and have the same soporific rhythm; turn this one into a question?] It occurred to him that people today have so many things to do that they don’t have time for old-fashioned friendship. [Sentence essentially repeats previous sentence; kill it or warm it up with specific detail.] Things didn’t work that way in America in previous eras. [Reader is still in the present; reverse the sentence to tell him he’s now in the past. “America” no longer needed if inserted earlier.] And he knew that the situation was very different in other countries, as he recalled from the years when he lived in villages in Spain and Italy. [Reader is still in America. Use a negative transition word to get him to Europe. Sentence is also too flabby. Break it into two sentences?] It almost seemed to him that as people got richer and built their houses farther apart they isolated themselves from the essentials of life. [Irony deferred too long. Plant irony early. Sharpen the paradox about richness.] And there was another thought that troubled him. [This is the real point of the paragraph; signal the reader that it’s important. Avoid weak “there was” construction.] His friends had deserted him when he needed them most during his recent illness. [Reshape to end with “most”; the last word is the one that stays in the reader’s ear and gives the sentence its punch. Hold sickness for next sentence; it’s a separate thought.] It was almost as if they found him guilty of doing something shameful. [Introduce sickness here as the reason for the shame. Omit “guilty”; it’s implicit.] He recalled reading somewhere about societies in primitive parts of the world in which sick people were shunned, though he had never heard of any such ritual in America. [Sentence starts slowly and stays sluggish and dull. Break it into shorter units. Snap off the ironic point.]

Improved version:

He remembered that neighbors used to take care of one another. But that no longer seemed to happen in America. Was it because everyone was so busy? Were people really so preoccupied with their television sets and their cars and their fitness programs that they had no time for friendship? In previous eras that was never true. Nor was it how families lived in other parts of the world. Even in the poorest villages of Spain and Italy, he recalled, people would drop in with a loaf of bread. An ironic idea struck him: as people got richer they cut themselves off from the richness of life. But what really troubled him was an even more shocking fact. The time when his friends deserted him was the time when he needed them most. By getting sick he almost seemed to have done something shameful. He knew that other societies had a custom of “shunning” people who were very ill. But that ritual only existed in primitive cultures. Or did it?

  1. different from egotistical. ↩

  2. This is so true and so easy to forget. I’m planning a difficult hike in south of Patagonia. When I made the decision to do it, I got anxious. As I planned the trip more and uncovered my blind-spots, my anxiety started to ease. Simple things like trail names and their characteristics, the town, it’s history, etc… Helps tremendously. ↩

  3. Use the em-dash in two ways. One is to amplify or justify in the second part of the sentence a thought you stated in the first part. “We decided to keep going—it was only 100 miles more and we could get there in time for dinner.” The other use involves two dashes, which set apart a parenthetical thought within a longer sentence. “She told me to get in the car—she had been after me all summer to have a haircut—and we drove silently into town.”. How do these related to semi-colon and comma? Semi-colon separates two sentences which could stand alone, but are somehow related. Em-dash is used sort of like a comma. But usually more of a “separate thought” than a comma. Also, if your sentence already has a lot of commas it can be more visually clear. Commas are used in lists, they’re used to separate clauses, they’re used to indicate a pause. more on these ↩

  4. “I saw a man on a hill with a telescope.” This sentence has multiple interpretations: 1. I used a telescope to see a man who was on a hill. 2. I saw a man who was on a hill, and that man had a telescope. 3. I saw a man who was on a hill that had a telescope mounted on it. 3. Unify pronouns in a sentence. ↩

  5. I noticed that looking up alternatives forces you to be more precise: to entertain, to accommodate, to feed. ↩

  6. Cajole: gentle persuasion. Wheedle: persuasion through insincere flattery. Blandish: persuasion through skill-full flattery. Coax: persuasion through patient means. ↩

  7. Example of this: Original: These are the times that try men’s souls. Bad: * Times like these try men’s souls. * How trying it is to live in these times! * These are trying times for men’s souls. * Soul-wise, these are trying times. ↩

  8. Joe saw him. He was seen by Joe. Former is strong, latter is weak. ↩

  9. Don’t set up a business that you can start or launch. Don’t say that the president of the company stepped down. Did he resign? Did he retire? Did he get fired? Be precise. Use precise verbs. ↩