Customer Reviews

Techniques of the Selling Writer

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If you could have only one book on writing craft, this would be the one to pick. This book is confusing for beginning writers but invaluable once you get a little experience. I suggest the reader take in only one topic at a time. Mr. Swain packed a lot into each and every word and his chapters take a while to digest. But once you get it, everything you've ever learned about writing falls into place.

In my writing group, writers who just don't get Swain seem to like Jack Bickham's Scene and Sequel. But that's a review for another day.

This book was recommended to me before I sold my first book, and I'm certain what I learned in reading it contributed to that first sale and all the ones that followed (I've sold 33 novels in all). I highly recommend it, not only for novices, but for all writers.

Although Swain's book was originally published in 1965, there's a very good reason why it's still in print. The information he presents is solid, useful and timeless.

The book has 10 chapters. The first, Fiction and You, tells what the writer needs to know and gives common traps writers fall into. Then he discusses things like rules and the creative act of writing. His style is terse and sentences are short. That makes it easy to find specific information when you go back later to look for it.

In the second chapter he gets down to serious business -- words. How to find them, how to use them and make them clear and concise. The third chapter is all about feelings and how to use them. In the fourth he goes into the necessity for conflict, what to do and not to do in building it. Chapter Five presents the strategies of fiction. "Fiction..." he writes, "creates an especially vivid vicarious tension...Your job as a writer is to control and manipulate this tension." He also delineates the source of story satisfaction and describes how to produce it.

Chapter 6 is all about getting a story started, lining up story elements, developing the middle of the story and winding it up. Story people and the importance of characters and character development are covered in Chapter 7. Planning the story, recognizing good story material, preparing to write, and what you need in order to succeed as a writer wind up the last few chapters. He devotes one page to marketing advice and that simply directs the reader to study the markets.

This is, without a doubt, one of the most useful and easiest to use books on the craft of writing that has ever been published. Its advice is timeless. This book should be in every writer's collection.

This book should be required reading for all writers. It is jam-packed with useful information, excellent examples, and "tricks" of the trade. Although much of the material is geared toward more commercial writing, the author does an excellent job at pointing out when and how these techniques can be modified for more literary genres. The book is extremely well-organized, always clear and insightful. For beginners and expert craftsmen alike.

This is the "bible" for fiction writers. So, if you want to write fiction, get and read this book. Don't be discouraged, however, if you don't get it all the first time through. No one does. Just keep it on your shelf, and I guarantee you'll refer to it throughout your career. I do. And every time I pick it up, I see and understand something I didn't get the last time I looked at it.

I resisted based on that alone. But once I caved I was glad that I had. Mr. Swain's book is highlighted and dogeared after only a few months of my owning it. I turn to it consistently and reread passages that hit me strongly.

His book is very organized and doesn't waste your time. If you are a writer, that is a rare commodity as you well know. I would tell you that you must buy this book, but what if you are like me and are stubborn?

So don't buy this book. Don't do your career as a writer a favor. And certainly don't buy his book on Characters! Just don't do it. Keep struggling and doing it on your own.

But, if you don't want to fight upstream the entire way, catch a ride on Dwight Swains Techniques and give yourself a much needed rest.

The "Techniques of the Selling Writer" is written very much like a text book except it "sounds" very much like Mr. Swain is speaking to you. I will admit that some of the reading is a bit laborious, and unlike most books, I found that if I didn't use a book mark I'd get easily lost.

This book is about technique, as the title states, and that is what is to be found here. It doesn't have instructions one how to write a "block buster, best selling novel" nor does it describe in much detail about whether to use the "outline everything" model or the just do it approach, although Mr. Swain does have opinions about these topics and a host of others.

The techniques described here can and should be used to write for any genre and almost any type of writer could benefit from a good reading of this work. There is a reason this book is still being printed and is still popular after being first released some 38 years ago. And there is hardly anything out of date, sans a few mentions of typewriters and carbons, this book could have been written last year.

Because of it's length and because it is a bit hard to read in some places, I'd suggest that someone looking for a good book on writing for the first time start with something a bit less challenging and shorter, then, if interest is still high, come to this and learn in more detail and with more specifics the techniques presented. I have reviewed some other good books on writing, some of which are shorter and easier to read, but still very good.

I do highly recommend this work, in the middle of reading it, I took a short break and read a fast paced paperback fictional novel by a very successful writer and noticed all kinds of techniques that I had previously simply read without realizing the important function they were playing in making a successful novel.

In hindsight if I had known about this book prior to purchasing all the others, I would have saved enough money to take an absolutely fabulous trip to some exotic locale for a prolonged vacation.

This book is not a fast read. In fact you may question reading it at all. But, if you're serious about writing, this is the first book you need. All the others out there paraphrase this one.

This book is usually at the top of every writer's "must-have" list, and for good reason. Packed with useful, easy to comprehend explanations on everything from writing with emotion to sustaining conflict, to preparing to sell your work -- TECHNIQUES OF THE SELLING WRITER covers it all. Swain's instruction is almost conversational--perhaps a bit rambling in places--but always illuminating. A classic how-to book from an old master. Gotta get this one! (For a list of additional must-have writing books, visit the Resources page at WriteWayPro's website.)

This book is fantastic. I recommend it to all fiction writers.