What makes writing effective is its punch, its power, its ability to reach an invisible, long skinny finger into your soul and scratch awake a feeling. If you have to write--or speak--whether on your job, or you're tackling your "I should write a book," what should you do to make it good?
Do you have two minutes? Pick up _100 Ways_, read one directive a day, think about it for 60 seconds, and get on with your work, integrating the new principles as you can. In three months, you'll be a better writer. Or thumb through the book to find and practice its most magical tricks, like "A man said," vs. "A county official said," from the two pages on using "specific nouns."
If I could fantasize everyone I know--especially people trying to market their own businesses--into better communicators, I'd dream them into these five Provost guidelines: purpose, pyramids, transitions, wordiness and parallelism; then toss in for good measure: 12 ways to avoid making your readers hate you--all covered in less than 20 pages. The other 130 pages concisely address essentials from how to get started to where to put the commas.
_100 Ways_ is as "quick and dirty" as you can get for sharp and clean writing.
