Is your writing flabby or fit? If your sentences are weighed down with passives and prepositions, be-verbs and waste words, The Writers Diet is for you. This book will help you energise your writing and strip unnecessary padding from your prose. The Writers Diet offers a short, sharp introduction to great writing. Through the online test at www.writersdiet.com and the analysis and examples in this book, Helen Sword teaches writers of all kinds students to teachers, lawyers to librarians how to transform flabby sentences into active, energetic prose. The book and the website enable writers to diagnose their writing for flab passives and prepositions, weak verbs and waste words and energise their work by stripping away unnecessary padding. The rules of good writing are deceptively simple but this book helps writers to see those principles at work, through examples by stylish authors from Charles Dickens to John McPhee.

First published in 2007, The Writers Diet became a bestselling handbook and now returns refreshed alongside a new version of www.writersdiet.com. The book will highlight your bad habits and sharpen your style for clearer, crisper sentences filled with words that count. Who says nutritious material must be bland? This short book is packed with excellent advice on writing, offered with charm and good cheer. Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of The Sense of Style: The Thinking Persons Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. Does my style look big in this? The Writers Diet shows us how to measure our verbal shape honestly and unflinchingly in private, see what we need to tone, and train in simple steps that we can all enjoy. Concise, punchy, engaging, practical, effective, Helen Swords instant classic has become even fitter in this new edition.

Professor Brian Boyd, the University of Auckland.