Martin Amis on How to Write a Great Sentence

It's been a while since I did a piece on good writing, for students.   In an old post I said "Listen to your words; push your prose toward poetry."  That's perhaps a bit much -- you don't need to write poetry, but you do need to listen to your writing. 

On the listening theme, check out this Martin Amis clip, even if I don't see why you shouldn't repeat prefixes or suffixes in the same sentence (in fact I think the repetition can sometimes be poetic, a sort of alliteration, when done tastefully).  And while you're at it, take a look at this marvelous older clip too.