Be Careful in Choosing Your Agent or Publisher

Be exceedingly careful in choosing your agent or your publisher. Don’t send the book to anyone who charges a fee for reading it or publishing it. In the real world of publishing, people pay you for your work. . . . Choose a publisher who has previously published your sort of book. Don’t shotgun it around blindly. If your novel espouses atheism, don’t send it to a religious publisher.

EVAN HUNTER

Absolute Words

Our language contains perhaps a score of words that may be described as absolute words. These are words that properly admit of no comparison or intensification. . . . My own modest list of words that cannot be qualified by “very” or “rather” or “a little bit” includes unique, imperative, universal, final, fatal, complete, virgin, pregnant, dead, equal, eternal, total, unanimous, essential, and indispensable.

JAMES J. KILPATRICK

Start As Near the End As Possible

A good magazine article doesn't need an introduction, so don't begin with the background of your subject, how you happened to get interested in it, why the reader should read it, or how you obtained the information for it. Begin your article with conflict that produces tension, often revealed by including a brief example or anecdote and problem that will be resolved at the end. It's a good rule to start as near the end as possible and then plunge your reader into the central tension. When you've involved your reader in this way, weave in background facts or information as you think the reader needs it to understand the purpose and point of your piece.

DONALD M. MURRAY