AN MFA FOR YOUR MBA

Mandel, the founder of a marketing firm, offers a guidebook for improving one’s prose. 

In his nonfiction debut, the author, who has an MFA degree in fiction from Texas State University and an MA in literature from New York University, extols the many benefits of honing one’s prose. His main focus is on how writing is used in the business world, where, he says, “derivative junk, timewasters, clichés, and jargon” abound, although “a few original, actionable items are communicated.” His core contention couldn’t be more straightforward—“it is our imperative to control language, lest it control us”—and to this end, he lays out a series of fast-paced chapters on how to communicate effectively with the written word. He asserts that he’s not trying to “make business-speak into modern art”; instead, he aims to provide readers with a series of useful discussions and writing exercises. He covers such subjects as establishing a writing practice and correctly gauging one’s target readership, and he devotes a pleasing amount of space to a key problem of business-world writing: clichés. “They make your writing weak, and they weaken your argument,” he rightly points out. Through all of this, Mandel appealingly takes his own advice; his prose is crisp and smoothly readable (though it occasionally lapses into profanity, which may not be to all tastes), and he effectively makes his point that improving one’s prose style is about asserting “ownership” of one’s voice. Readers from the corporate world who’ve fallen into the trap of using surface and effort as active verbs, or of using the lazy adjective doable, will find a great deal of food for thought in these pages.  

A lively and genuinely helpful book of writing advice.