Sometimes you get stuck. Even using my BookProgram approach, you may find yourself without a clue as to how to write this next segment.
Peter Elbow, in “Writing With Power,” offers a number of excellent techniques.
But here’s one that is so obvious you may not have thought of it: Read some good writing, and use its patterns to say what you want to say.
Pick up any well-written magazine — I like Sports Illustrated, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Field & Stream — and read a couple of articles. Ask yourself: “What would it sound like if this author wrote my opening paragraph?” Then do it. Emulate. Model. (Don’t plagiarize, of course.)
Pattern imitation is a time-honored training approach; watch student painters copying paintings in museums. It’ll work for you, too.
