02CICYM
14/1/07
6:32 pm
Page 136
And so the solutions boom began. Perhaps for a year or two, it seemed fresh. But soon, absolutely everybody was at it. Need a new secretary? Get on the phone to the recruitment solutions experts. Blocked loo? Call drainage solutions on this number. Negative energy in your bedroom? Lucky you know that Feng Shui solutions outfit. Any day now, I’m expecting my friend Dave to rebrand himself as a supplier of ‘dairy beverage solutions’.
spelling Your computer spell-check can prevent you from spelling words incorrectly. But the importune thin to dismember is that it won’t cheque weather they are the rite worms.
story Bad writers look at a pile of facts, figures, opinions and assorted information and say, ‘What order shall I put these in?’ Good writers say, ‘What’s the story?’
style Hmm, this is going to be tricky. No book about how to be a better writer can ignore it; but style is slippery, amorphous stuff. We all know roughly what we mean by it, but to define it, to pin it down … well, that’s a great deal harder.
136 A PERSUASIVE WRITING A TO Z