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The Art of Writing: General Writing Guides

Arranged alphabetically by author; click on title for more information.

Becoming a Writer
Dorothea Brande
Brande wrote this book more than 65 years ago to help writers get over their "personality problems" and start writing. If you are asking yourself if you are a writer, this book might help you answer the question.

Starting From Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual
Rita Mae Brown
Outspoken and irreverent bestselling author Brown discusses how writers live as well as offering advice on mastering the tools of their trade. She begins with a very personal account of her own career and in a sassy style that makes her outspoken advice as entertaining as it is useful, she provides straight talk about the challenges of the writing life. In addition Brown, a former teacher or writing, offers a serious examination of the writer's tool--language, plotting, characters, symbolism, and a fascinating, annoted reading list of important works from the seventh century to the late twentieth.

Writing Fiction: A Guide to the Narrative Craft (6th Edition)
Janet Burroway
The most widely used and respected book on writing fiction. The writer is guided from first inspiration to final revision. Supported by an abundance exercises, this guide/anthology explores and integrates the elements of fiction while offering practical techniques and concrete examples. A focus on the writing process in its entirety provides a comprehensive guide to writing fiction, approaching distinct elements in separate chapters while building on what has been covered earlier. There is a newer

The Writing Life
Annie Dillard
"The Writing Life is a spare volume...that has the power and force of a detonating bomb...A book bursting with metaphors and prose bristling with incident." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A kind of spiritual Strunk & White, a small and brilliant guidebook to the landscape of a writer's task... Dillard brings the same passion and connective intelligence to this narrative as she has to her other work." -- Detroit News

The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
John C. Gardner, J. Laslocky (Editor)
"John Gardner was famous for his generosity to young writers, and (this book) is his . . . gift to them. The Art of Fiction will fascinate anyone interested in how fiction gets put together. For the young writer, it will become a necessary handbook, a stern judge, an encouraging friend."-- The New York Times Book Review

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within
Natalie Goldberg
"A splendid combination of Zen wisdom and down-to-earth advice about writing." Probably the single most recommended book for beginning writers, Goldberg's rules for good writing are the same as those of good sex: Keep your hand moving, lose control, and don't think. If you like Bones then try her Wild Mind: Living the Writer's Life and Living Color: A Writer Paints Her World.

The Art of Creative Nonfiction: Writing and Selling the Literature of Reality
Lee Gutkind
For the beginning creative nonfiction writer Gutkind, a pioneer in the writing and teaching of nonfiction, presents a practical guide to composing creative nonfiction that covers the entire process--from initial psychological preparation to marketing a finished piece. Includes information on conducting research, using interviews, "immersion journalism," cinematic writing, the ethical and moral concerns of writing subjective truth and more.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Stephen King
Part memoir, part master class, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his near-fatal accident in 1999 -- and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Anne Lamott
"Lamott is a generous spirit with a sharp tongue, who makes writing seem like one of life's most exhilarating, most devastating endeavors, with the chance of success 100 percent or close to nil depending on one's definition." Both provocative and funny, the book is treasured by many for its effect on the soul as much as Lamott's practical advice.

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose
[Trade paperback is linked: available 1 April 2007. Currently available in hardcover].
The trick to writing, acording to Prose, is reading -- carefully, deliberately and slowly. She deals with both the basics (words, sentences, paragraphs) and the craft (narration, character, dialogue) using story or novel excerpts from a diversity of fiction: from John le Carré to Flaubert. Prose feels "literature not only breaks the rules, but makes us realize that there are none."

Stein On Writing
Sol Stein
A practical guide for writers by a master editor who has worked with such figures as Dylan Thomas, James Baldwin, and Jack Higgins covers character development, speeding up the pace, applying the Actors Studio Method, and creating suspense and tension.

If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit
Brenda Ueland
A bestselling classic first published in 1938 that still inspires many today. Her message, ultimately, is simple: You must look within, discover your true self, and, then listen to that true self. In doing so, you will be be able to unleash your creativity. Carl Sandburg called it, "The best book ever written about how to write." Andrei Codrescu said he "was with [Ueland] right up to the end and wanted to shout 'Amen'."

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction
William Knowlton Zinsser
A revised and updated edition of one of the most successful guides to writing nonfiction ever published, this is an indispensable tool for anyone who writes or wants to learn to write. Full of practical advice on the basics of writing nonfiction: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity. Typical Zinsser: "An experienced writer learns how to crank up his confidence and self-esteem when he sits down to write."

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