The Writer's Digest Guide to Good Writing

by Thomas Clark (Editor)

Essays, selected from the first seventy-five years of Writer's Digest magazine, cover style, genre, dialogue, plot, research, organization, and endings

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Reference, 20th Century

338 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Dana Turk · Rating 5 out of 5]

The guide to good writing gives helpful tips and guides the most novice writer through the process of composing award winning literature. The toughest part of writing is creating the manuscript and the Writer's Guide pushes you along with providing everything from plot development to marketing and soliciting an agent. Have fun, and write the next best seller.

Dana Turk.

[Darnoc Leadburger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've never read a book like this before. I ran across it at a local library sale in August of this year, and it didn't even take me two months to get around to reading it. That's saying something when you're an addict like me and have hundreds of books to read. But I'm not just a reader; I'm a writer, and I'm trying to get my SF short fiction published. So far I haven't had much luck, but I can feel a breakthrough coming. I picked this up with the hope that it would push me over that edge.

Did it?

Maybe?

I find that a lot of the advice in here isn't horribly original or anything you haven't heard before, but it did nudge me in quite a few good directions. I've been trying to work on my characters and perspective, and there were a couple articles in here that really drove those things home. When I sat down to write after reading this book, I had a heightened awareness that I couldn't have gotten any other way than taking out two and a half days of reading could've, and I think it made my writing better. But it's too early to tell, and is this advice good for everyone?

I don't know. When the book started in the 20s (this was published in the 90s to celebrate Writer's Digest's 75th anniversary and collects articles from the history of the magazine), I didn't really like it. The advice just felt dated and not what I was looking for. The poetry article kind of angered me because of my dislike of written verse... but around the one-third mark, I started getting into it. My favorite article was "1 Brain + 1 Brain + 1 Brian = Viewpoint," the aforementioned piece on fiction perspective. There was a lot of advice for nonfiction writers too, which were generally enjoyable if not directly applicable to me. A lot of the fiction articles talked about how a good story/plot is the most important element of your short story or novel, and others on how to write better characters or plot various types of stories. There was a piece on sci-fi writing, my field of 'expertise,' and it was a good enough look on worldbuilding by the one and only Gardner Dozios.

There were some authors I like in the book. Asimov wrote a piece about 'how to be a writer' (which was cool after I just read Astounding), and Harlan Ellison had a... typically spiteful and self-hateful(?) story. There's this big collage of snippets of random writing advice written by the likes of Chrichton, Burroughs, Anne Rice, H. G. Wells, Bradbury, Grisham, Vonnegut... etc. It was nice to read but not very weighty.

Would I recommend to aspiring or successful writers?... I'm not sure. I'm sure there are better, more focused writing reference books out there. Doesn't mean this couldn't help; I think it helped me. But I wouldn't have sought this out for myself. I stumbled across it by chance, and I did enjoy it. I'll probably end up leafing through it in the future because print books > online articles, but once again, it's probably dated and not what everyone's looking for. I enjoyed reading it, made me feel good, but since it's not extremely applicable... 7.5/10. Almost four stars, but it's just 'good,' which is no crime. I may revisit pieces from time to time, and it's inspiring me to pick up more written-for-writer tomes next time I ransack a library sale.

[Casey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like so many things in life you're going to get different advice from different people. "Write what you know!" & "Write what you don't know!". Some of it more pertinent to today, surprisingly some of that is nearly 100 years old. And some of it is well, less useful... and I'm not even talking about all the poetry advice for those not interested in writing poetry.

All in all an all around good book, but not really stupendous.

[April Helene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll admit, I skipped a few articles that didn't interest me/didn't apply to me. What I did read was interesting and helpful, and some of it also inspired me to get back in to my writing. Overall, an enjoyable experience and one that I am happy to have annotated to return to, but still a little outdated and not something to follow religiously.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A hit and miss combo........David X. Manner, Earl Stanley Gardner, Thomas Uzzell, Phyllis Whitney, Harlan Ellison and some guy I forgot. I don't know how much you'll learn, but there are tidbits in there that are worth reading.

[Joshua Rossi · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a lot of inspiration here. I've read a lot of how-to-write books, but I still found pieces of wisdom that were extremely helpful.

[Madelén · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sooo many good tips on writing. I recommend to those who want to read this, to grab a pen and loads of post its, because there's a lot of gold to find here.

[Chelsea DeVries · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful and contained a lot of craft advice

[K.M. Allan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays from the 1920s through to the 1990s about the different styles and aspects of writing. It was interesting to see that the most basic writing advice is still the same, even across the span of decades. Highlights include, How To Write Mystery Stories, Plots The Triple-O Way, The Ten Deadly Sins, Write It Simply, and The Seven Beacons Of Excellent Writing.

[Spectre I · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great writing resource. Lots of advice that I found helpful, inspiring, and encouraging.

[Tim Shepard · Rating 4 out of 5]

While some of the articles in this book did not directly relate to me, I found them to be helpful. Every writer should take a few days and read through these timeless essays. It will certainly help give a new perspective to writing.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This consists of about fifty articles culled from seventy years of "Writer's Digest" magazine. Some well-known authors—and some not so well-known—appear in the pages.

The topics addressed are wide and relevant—from dialogue and plotting, and address both fiction and nonfiction markets.

Its one fateful flaw is that it gets boring in areas and at times the articles cover the obvious. At other times, the points are made concisely and memorably.

[Paul, · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of this book was obvious. A lot of it was really interesting to read because it was written in the 20s and 30s with the differences in style and approach that came with that time period. There were some solid articles in there.

[Pam Bustin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun one to keep on the shelf to dip into on occasion for tasty tidbits and things to think about.

Advice and Quotes from writers GALORE - from the 20s through the 90s.