Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wicked Good Prose

Today's writers need more spunk than Strunk: whether it's the Great American e-mail, Madison Avenue advertising, or Grammy Award-winning rap lyrics, memorable writing must jump off the page. Copy veteran Constance Hale is on a mission to make creative communication, both the lyrical and the unlawful, an option for everyone. With its crisp, witty tone, Sin and Syntax covers grammar's ground rules while revealing countless unconventional syntax secrets (such as how to use--Gasp!--interjections or when to pepper your prose with slang) that make for sinfully good writing. Discover how to: ● Distinguish between words that are pearls and words that are potatoes ● Avoid couch potato thinking and commitment phobia when choosing verbs ● Use literary devices such as onomatopoeia, alliteration, and metaphor (and understand what you're doing) Everyone needs to know how to write stylish prose--students, professionals, and seasoned writers alike. Whether you're writing to sell, shock, or just sing, Sin and Syntax is the guide you need to improve your command of the English language.

About the Author :
Coleen Marlo is an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator who has been nominated for an Audie Award twice, winning in 2011. She has been awarded three Listen-Up Awards from Publishers Weekly, an AudioFile Audiobook of the Year Award in 2011, and was named Audiobook Narrator of the Year for 2010 by Publishers Weekly. She is a member of the prestigious Actors Studio and taught acting for ten years at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. Marlo is a proud founding member of Deyan Institute of Voice Artistry and Technology. Constance Hale is a writer, editor, and literary critic. She is the author of several books, including three on writing: Sin and Syntax; Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch; and Wired Style, the one-of-a-kind guide to online English usage and geekspeak that was hailed by Newsweek as The Chicago Manual of Style for the Millennium. As a reporter, she has covered Latin plurals and Latino culture, Berkeley politics, and Hawaiian sovereignty. Her freelance writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Smithsonian, National Geographic Adventure, the Los Angeles Times, and Honolulu, as well as anthologies. Hale is an editor, too, and her approach to the Bones, Flesh, Cardinal Sins and Carnal Pleasures of writing has been informed by her twenty-five years of editing journalism, essays, and nonfiction books. She has been a staff editor at the Oakland Tribune, the San Francisco Examiner, Wired, and Health magazines; she has edited more than three dozen books for Harvard Business Press and private clients. Hale lives in Oakland, California, works in San Francisco, and spends as much time as she can on the North Shore of O'ahu.