Good Writing
Neal Allen, Anne Lamott✦Eric’s guide
This is the writing book that doesn't tell you to 'find your voice' — it shows you how to fix the sentence that's sitting in front of you right now.
The story
Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences is a sentence-level craft book by journalist Neal Allen and beloved writing teacher Anne Lamott. Each of the 36 chapters presents a single rule for making prose clearer and more alive, followed by two takes: Allen's practical, editor-trained explanation and Lamott's warmer, sometimes playfully dissenting response. The book is designed for anyone who writes — books, essays, memos, blog posts, or scripts — and aims to start where grammar guides stop, focusing on turning adequate sentences into memorable ones.
Most writing advice is about the big picture: plot, structure, finding your voice. This book is the opposite — it's 36 tiny, surgical rules for the sentence itself, the unit you actually wrestle with every time you write. The twist is that you get two voices on each rule: Neal Allen, the journalist-editor who has been fixing other people's prose for decades, and Anne Lamott, who will sometimes disagree with him and take you on a warm, wandering detour. Plenty of readers find those detours charming; some find them distracting from the rule. Read it and decide which camp you're in — but either way, you'll walk away with at least three things you can use tomorrow morning.
- This is not a grammar book and not a rhetoric textbook — it's a sentence-level surgery kit. If you arrive expecting a comprehensive guide to writing, you'll be disappointed. Arrive expecting 36 specific, arguable opinions about how to make a sentence better.
- The two-voice format means you'll sometimes read a rule, then read a counter-opinion from the other author. That's the point. Treat it as a conversation you're eavesdropping on, not a lecture.
- Some rules you will disagree with — readers already do. That's fine. The book is built for argument, not obedience. Mark the ones you think are wrong and ask yourself why.
- How each rule is demonstrated with real examples — not invented sentences, but lines from published work. Notice how the before-and-after comparison works; that's the core teaching move.
- The moments where Lamott's 'take' section gently pushes back against Allen's rule. She doesn't always agree, and the disagreement is where the real learning lives.
- The recurring insistence on strong verbs and concrete nouns — this is the book's deepest conviction. Watch how often the examples circle back to replacing weak verbs and abstract nouns.
- The tone shift between the two authors: Allen is confident and erudite, Lamott is warm and playful. The book is teaching you that voice is not one thing — it's a choice you make sentence by sentence.
- Which rule did you disagree with most strongly — and what does that disagreement tell you about your own writing instincts?
- Did the two-voice format help you learn, or did it slow you down? Would you have preferred one author's take straight through?
- Pick one rule you want to try applying to your own writing for the next week. Which one, and why that one?
- If you had to add a 37th rule to this book, what would it be?
Warming up Good Writing…