Writing Is Hard: A Collection of Over 100 Essays

As anyone who has ever tried to write knows, there’s no denying that writing well is hard. Anybody can put together a sentence, but writing complex sentences that convey a range of ideas while still following all the proper rules of grammar and usage is a challenge. Author Jim LaBate, who has been a writer and teacher for much of his life, understands this, and that’s where the essays in Writing Is Hard originated. Originally published in a school newspaper, the essays take tried-and-true writing guidelines and break them down into small, manageable chunks. The book starts with what LaBate calls the “commandments” of writing, which include avoiding passive sentences and using strong language in place of more generic “general” words. From there, the book covers so much ground, including run-on sentences, diagramming, types of essays, citing sources, plagiarism, research papers, and more. What’s great about this book is how LaBate successfully condenses each topic into a short, easy-to-read essay; you can read this book in fits and starts and never worry about having to stop in the middle of a long-winded chapter. In fact, this is the kind of book you can pick up, flip to pretty much any section, read an essay, and then put down again; you don’t have to read it in sequence to gain a lot of new knowledge. This is an excellent resource for writers of all experience levels.