Serving in women’s clink: it is sort of character-forming (6-2,7)

I believe the answer is:

joined-up writing

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'sort of character-forming' is the definition.
(way of forming written characters)

'serving in women's clink it' is the wordplay.
'serving' becomes 'joined up' (joined up and serving in the army).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'women's clink' becomes 'wring' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'wring' enclosing 'it' is 'writing'.
'joinedup'+'writing'='JOINED-UP WRITING'

'is' acts as a link.

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I've seen this clue in The Times.

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