how to improve diction (word choice) and sentence structure?

Answer 1

What I do when I work on my novel... when I'm not too happy with the word my brain could come up with, I select the (dull/non-descriptive) word, then hit shift F7 (That is MS Word's Thesaurus) and explore... try it!

I always find something great, mostly beyond expectation sometimes I cannot make up my mind which word to use!

When that happens, I close my eyes and 'listen' to the word in many aspects... the true meaning, the way it sounds, the way it's pronounced, the way it connects to the other words around it, the way it connects to the atmosphere in what you are telling, for instance a long complicated word will connect with a long complicated situation.

Regarding sentence structure, I find that when I have the right words, the structure usually falls in place. I don't know what you are writing, but in my case, in creative writing there are no rules. There is nothing wrong with a one word sentence. In fact, I use that often and it always has a hidden meaning, usually extremely descriptive in following something specific.

Just one thing that you must always keep in mind, make sure you use the correct word regarding the true meaning eg.
no/know, your/you're, son/sun, to/too/two their/there etc. It is very easy to make a mistake in that regard as the words sound the same, but have completely different meanings.

A mouth-full, hope I helped a bit..

Answer 2

the construction of knowledge has several levels, first of them implies the recognition and the memorization of which later you'll be able to apply, so although it seems simple, first thing you must do to improve your diction is reading a lot and everything, and for improve sentence structure studying grammar very hard and at the same time practice and practice the things that you're learning in every situations you can, until you get accustomed to the knowledge that you are acquiring and you finally use it automatically.

Answer 3

That's quite a big question. Do you have a particular sentence structure question that you'd like to ask us about? Also, are you a native speaker or a non-native speaker?

As far as diction, I'd recommend that you read examples of the type of writing you are trying to do and use the same kinds of words that they do. (Don't plagiarize, but rather choose the same KINDS of words.)