For the next two chapters we will look at the practical craft of constructing compelling phrases, sentences and narratives. Think of it as everything you were supposed to learn in language and grammar classes in primary and secondary school— but in only a few thousand words. This time around, we're going to teach you the actual stuff you need to be a professional writer, and make a living doing so.

For that reason, we aren't going to spend time on grammar: in the real world, the only rule of grammar is that it works in getting the message through to the reader. Nor are we going to discuss rhetoric, other than, once again, what works. Nor vocabulary: experience has shown that working every day as a writer will force you to expand your vocabulary if you are going to be able to effectively explain yourself. Nor punctuation: not least because that field has become increasingly fluid in recent years.

Rather, we are going to use these two chapters to look at how you use language in the most powerful way to capture and hold readers, enhance their emotional response to what you've written, and keep them reading through to the end. Compared to that, whether you've written a sentence fragment or split an infinitive is inconsequential. Indeed, in professional practice, there are good arguments to be made for both. So, let's begin our short course in Real- Life Writing— or, as the author prefers, Writing for Money.

The parts of language and their roles

Sounds are senses

Once, during a safari in Namibia, the author met a man, a tracker and guide, who was one of the most linguistically accomplished individuals on Earth. His father was a member of the Ovambo tribe, the dominant African people in that part of sub- Saharan Africa; his mother was Bushman, a member of the San people. Meanwhile, by the nature of his work, and his own native language skills, this man dealt regularly with people from around the world and had to learn to speak with them in their own languages.