“The most difficult part of being a writer is living the life. There are no guarantees that you will be a success, and, if you are, there are no guarantees that you will continue to succeed. But you keep on working. You have no choice: it’s as if being a writer is encoded in your DNA.”

So starts the wonderful book —The Constant Art of Being a Writer: The Life, Art & Business of Fiction by N. M. Kelby, the award-winning novelist and short story writer. Even though this book deals mainly with writing fiction, writers of other genres will also benefit tremendously from this book.

The book is divided into three parts—The Life, The Work, and The Business. The first part—The Life—explores how to live the life of a writer. It explores the issues like how the writer’s life and the lives of people close to him change and how to adapt to such a life. It explains why writers write, even at the risk of losing everything they hold dear. This part also gives practical advice on how to set up your writing practice, emphasizes the need for a writing space and how to design one for you, the importance of writing regularly and creating a routine, etc. It also deals with topics like how to read as a writer, what to read, how to capture your thoughts and ideas, how to review books you have read and learn from them, how to create your support system, whether to join a writing community or create one, etc. You will also find topics like the importance of understanding your reader and how to do it, techniques to overcome the writer’s block, how to develop yourself, tips on how to apply for grants, fellowships, residencies, etc., whether to quit or keep your day job, how to manage your finances, why you should never give up, etc.

The second part—The Work—deals with the craft of writing. It starts with advice on how to generate ideas for your story and moves on to details like creating and developing characters, choosing the style, voice, tense, and point of view for your story, and how to structure and build the plot—beginning, middle, and end. This part also explores the different writing styles like magic realism, metafictive structure, and humor, how to create the outline of your story, how to research for your work, how to revise and fix problems, etc. One of the best chapters in this part is on creating bestsellers—tips on writing, presenting, targeting, marketing, and promoting your book so that it becomes a bestseller. This part also deals with tips on improving your visibility by sending the work for contests, sending them to publications for reviews, etc.

The final part—The Business—deals with the issues like agents, whether you need them, finding one that is right for you, dealing with them, etc. It also addresses the topics like contracts, your rights, what to look for in the contracts, how to sell your rights, and tips on negotiating great deals, This part deals with how to handle poor sales, how to improve the sales, how to deal with publicity, how to avoid burnouts, how to promote your book by creating your website, using images and videos, creating book trailers, blogging, networking, etc. There is an excellent chapter on book tours, book fairs and festivals, bookstore appearances, and tips on how to make the best use of these promotional activities without wasting too much of your time. It also deals with whether or not to employ a publicist and how to deal with her. This part also examines the pros and cons of self-publishing and gives useful tips and advice.

Then there are two appendices: one is a glossary of publishing jargon and the other is a list of books that will inspire and motivate you and keep you going (the surprising omission being On Writing Well by William Zinsser).

One of the best advices of the book is in the Introduction—Never waste a word on the page.

This is a MUST READ for every writer.

Book Details:

• Author: N.M. Kelby
• Publisher: Writer’s Digest Books
• Edition & Year: First, 2009
• ISBN: 9781582975757
• Cover & Page Count: Paperback, 262 Pages

Jack Heffron, the author of this book, is a freelance writer, editor, actor, and teacher. In this book he has created a resource that will help writers to jump start their writing by developing ideas from the more than 400 prompts.

According to the author writing is an act of hope, courage, joy and celebration. Writing must be approached with a sense of play, of risk and experiment, openness and laughter. You should have fun when writing.

The book is divided into four sections, each geared toward a different stage of writing, offer dozens of unique approaches to unleash your creativity. All the chapters contains prompts that will help you generate ideas for your stories, essays, novels, journal entries, etc.

Part I (Bending and Stretching) contains four chapters—Making Your Way to Schenectady, Enemies of Creativity, Leading a Creative Life and Getting Ready to Write. This part is mainly concerned with the good habits that writers should develop like showing up (keeping a specific time to write), accepting the difficulty of creative writing process and learning to tackle it, making writing a habit or part of the daily routine, turning obstacles into opportunities, etc. It also describes the enemies of creativity—procrastination, talking, critiquing, judging, not enjoying the writing and not writing. According to the author, “Write regularly and you will find ideas flowing through you.” This section also talks about the topics like where to write (creating your own writing space), when you should write and how you should do it. All these things varies depending on the individual needs of each writer. This section helps the one that will work best for you. It also emphasizes the importance of taking chances and risks. The final chapter of this section deals with creativity techniques that will help you gain momentum. The techniques include free writing, brainstorming, automatic writing, listing, clustering, cave writing, cut and paste, mix and match, etc.

Part II (Exploring) contains 13 chapters—I Yam What Yam and Other Lies, Schnitzel with Noodles, Nellie Malone from Fifth and Stone, With a Banjo on my Knee, Thought of a Sundrenched Elsewhere, What’s Your Road, Man?, The Love You Make, Don’t Get me Started, Your Fifteen Minutes, All Our Secrets are the Same, Minding other People’s Business, A Day in the Life of a Writer, and A Life of the Spirit. This part identifies the different sources—yourself, family, country, hobbies, likes and dislikes, relationships, emotions, other peoples interests, etc.—from where you can generate ideas for your writing and explains how to do it. It also offers numerous prompts to get you started. It is one of the most interesting sections of the book and will help you in writing many stories and essays than you ever thought possible.

Part III (Finding Form) contains five chapters—Of Sonnets and Toasters, Fools Like You, The Shape of Thing to Come, It All Depends on Your Point of View, Other Rooms, Other Voices, Vast is the Power of Cities, It was the Best of Times, A Sort of Miracle. This part deals with choosing your form, how to create and develop characters, how to deal with space and time, how to tell the story, who should tell the story, ho to create great openings and endings, etc.

Part IV (Assessing and Developing) contains four chapters—What’s at Stake, Sitting Still, Tell it Slant, and Anything is Beautiful if You Say it is. In this section, the author introduces the finer points of the craft of writing like adding details, introducing symbols, not telling everything, and so on.

This is a book that is quite useful for a beginner. It gives a lot of practical advice and the prompts will help one find topics and generate ideas for writing and make writing a daily routine. A book worth reading and there are some real gems that will be useful for all.

Book Details:

• Author: Jack Heffron
• Publisher: Writer’s Digest Books
• Edition & Year: First, 2000
• ISBN: 9781582971797
• Cover & Page Count: Paperback, 262 Pages

The Keys of Great Writing offers great advice about every aspect of the craft, showing you how to develop a writer’s voice that is unique, precise and effective. From grammar to revision strategies, you will find the crucial information you need in short, easy-to-browse sections that enable you to hone your own signature writing approach.

The book’s 11 chapters are divided into three parts in addition to the foreword, introduction, five appendices, and the index. In the foreword the author introduces the books, his favorite writing gurus and gives an overview of the book. The introduction deals with style, myths of great writing, self-assessment checklist and the qualities required to become a good writer.

The first part—Keys to Great Writing— contains five chapters: Economy, Precision, Action, Music, and Personality. Chapter one (Economy) involves rejecting the notion that more is necessarily better. This chapter deals with various techniques to help ‘every word count.’ It contains 14 techniques to eliminate wordiness. The second chapter (Precision) is about the writer’s command of language and ability to use the right words. It contains guidelines for using the right word, making a definite impression and avoiding common errors in word choice. Chapter three (Action) has to do with making the sentences tell stories. It deals with issues like using action and movement to engage the reader, effective usage of active voice, and working with verbs and nouns. The fourth chapter (Music) is about rhythm and the sound of language. It teaches how to convey the emotions and communicate effectively with the readers. The final chapter of the first section (Personality) is about giving the readers a sense of the person behind the words. It offers sound advice on how to be lively, unpredictable, playful, and genuine.

The second part of the book is called Elements of Composition. It contains five chapters—Purpose, Point of view, Organization, Support, and Coherence. Chapter six (Purpose) deals with deciding what to say and how to say it persuasively. Chapter seven (Point of View) helps in deciding how to choose the best point of view to tell your story. The eighth chapter (Organization) deals with developing the project from outline to completion. It also concentrates on how to handle beginnings and endings. Chapter nine (Support) explains how to support the statements, ideas, and assertions with examples, quotes, analogies, and metaphors. The last chapter of this section (Coherence) explains how to maintain the flow and continuity of the thoughts and ideas.

Part three of the book (Drafting and Revising) has a single chapter—The Writing Process. This chapter explains how to write using ‘the four-stage process’. It also deals with issues like overcoming the writer’s block, getting started, dealing with long writing projects, etc. Some other topics covered in this chapter are using principles of time management in writing, developing good writing habits, and making a lifetime commitment.

The appendices are Glossary of grammatical terms, Keys of great writing checklist, Elements of composition checklist, Proofreading checklist, and Recommended resources and reading.

Keys to Great Writing by Stephen Wilbers is a book that every writer should read, read and keep on reading.

Book Details:

• Author: Stephen Wilbers
• Publisher: Writer’s Digest Books
• Year: 2007
• ISBN: 1582974926
• Cover & Page Count: Paperback, 240 pages

How many times have you gotten irritated because you either could not find the grammar or punctuation rule you needed or you could not keep the page flat as you attempted to put the instruction into practice? Rest assured, these days are over as soon as you put the Writer’s Digest Grammar Reference book to work on your desk!

The Writer’s Digest Grammar Desk Reference is the comprehensive resource on grammar and usage, a necessity for every writer’s desk. It presents balanced instruction and real-world examples that will ensure professional and flawless work on every occasion. A comprehensive subject guide provides ease of use, and thorough discussions address such issues as punctuation, sentence structure, parts of speech and much more.

The book is dived into four parts and has 29 chapters, in addition to a subject guide and an excellent index. Each chapter contains rules, conventions and instructions with simple, clear and appropriate examples. There are sections on common errors and how to avoid them.

Part I (Grammar: An Overview) deals with nouns, verbs, modifiers and other parts of speech, phrases, and clauses.

The second part— Grammar: Rules, Conventions, and Errors to Avoid—deals with subject-verb agreement, errors in the use of verbs, parallelism, errors in modification (misplaced, dangling, and ambiguous modifiers), personal pronouns, pronoun-antecedent agreement, reference of pronouns, faulty comparisons, faulty predication, mishandled ellipitical constructions, problems with ‘that’, etc.

Part III (Punctuation: Rules, Conventions, and Errors to Avoid) gives a comprehensive treatment on punctuation marks and their usage. The nine chapters in this part cover terminal punctuation marks, comma, colon and semicolon, parentheses, dashes, apostrophe, question marks, specialized punctuation marks, hyphen, etc. There is also has a chapter that illustrates how to punctuate compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.

The fourth part (Mechanics and Usage) deals with issues like capitalization, presentation of numbers, abbreviations, etc. The glossary of commonly misused words is an excellent source to learn the words that one should be careful about while writing.

The Writer’s Digest Grammar Desk Reference is a practical, comprehensive and accessible book. It fills a need in the grammar/punctuation reference book market offering correct grammar instruction that is reader-friendly, fun to read, and easy-to-understand. A must have for every writer.

Book Details:

• Author: Gary Lutz and Diane Stevenson
• Publisher: Writer’s Digest Books
• Year: 2005
• ISBN: 1582973350
• Cover & Page Count: Hardcover with concealed wire binding and tabs, 352 pages

This is a book that talks about the craft of writing from a master craftsman who has written more than 50 bestselling, novels. He has also written many novellas, short stories, essays, and articles.

In this book King describes his life, his writing and how to improve both. In King’s case, the writing career and the personal life are tightly intertwined, which makes reading more interesting as the book is replete with personal details and anecdotes as it is with knowledge and wisdom that one gains through extensive practice of one’s craft. King’s passion for life and writing shines through each and every page of the book.

The book is divided into 5 sections—C.V., What Writing Is, Toolbox, On Writing, and On Living: A Postscript. It also has two appendices—Door Shut, Door Open (an example on editing and rewriting) and A Booklist (a list of books recommended by the author).

The fist section—C.V.—contains King’s childhood memories and his growth as a writer from a novice teenage writer to a novelist while struggling to make a living. It contains glimpses and snapshots of King’s childhood, teenage, and youth. King describes how, his mother, brother and he struggled to meet the ends with his mom’s paycheck and how he became interested in writing and what sort of writing he did during his childhood, and teenage and how it influenced him. It describes, when and how King met his future wife and how they fell in love and are still in love. The section ends when King’s writing career is poised to take off—he has published a few novels, had become a drug addict and got out of addiction and has realized that “Life isn’t a support system for art. It’s the other way round.”

In the second section—What Writing Is—King tells you that it is telepathy. He then goes on to explain his theory. In the section named ‘Toolbox,’ King uses the analogy of a toolbox and its contents to explain the skills needed for a writer. The cardinal principal is that the more one practices the better his writing becomes. To quote the author, “If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.” King’s toolbox for writers contains tools like vocabulary, grammar, hard work, and so on. He gives some general rules about his likes and dislikes, what is good and what is not (avoid passive voice, eliminate the use of adverbs, etc.), but points the readers to Elements of Style by Strunk & White for more on grammar and usage.

The fourth section titled ‘On Writing’ is the heart of the book. This is where King explains the intricacies of writing—writing fiction. Readers get advise on how to create an environment that promotes writing, how to get ideas for writing, how to begin the story, how to develop the characters, how much details is required, why it’s important to tell the truth, how to prevent writer’s block, how to edit and rewrite, how to find a select group of reviewers, how to handle criticism and so on. It also has a section on literary agents and how to find them. This section, like all sections of the book, is full of anecdotes, real world examples, and experiences.

The final section (On Living: A Postscript) is about his accident that nearly killed him in 1999. He was hit by a van during his morning walk. He had chipped his spine in several places, had multiple fractures on both legs and hip and almost bled to death. He survived and slowly got back to his life and completed the book—On Writing—which he had just started before the accident.

According to King, “Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.”

This is one of the best books on writing you will ever find. It teaches you a lot of things not only about writing but also about life. King never assumes the role of a teacher; he just tells his story and shares his impressions and his opinions. But in that process, he imparts a lot of knowledge and wisdom to the reader. This book must be on the desktop of every writer—novice and accomplished, beginner and expert. When you are stuck, when you need inspiration or motivation, read this book and you will find what you need. I recommend this book to all writers.

Book Details:

• Author: Stephen King
• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2000
• ISBN: 0684853523
• Cover & Page Count: Hardcover, 288 Pages

You can order online at Amazon.

Copyright © Braintree Books. Reproduced with permission.

There are hundreds of usage and style books available in the market that teaches one how to write correctly in English, how to cite references, how to make the writing interesting and error free. The most comprehensive ones are tomes like The Chicago Manual of Style that run into thousands of pages. But among the myriad of the style and usage guides there is a small volume (105 pages) that has helped millions of people to write better.

This book—Elements of Style—teaches one the basics of grammar and usage in a very short time. According to Boston Globe, “No book in shorter space, with fewer words, will help any writer more than this persistent little volume.”

The book contains five sections in addition to a foreword, an introduction, an afterword, a glossary, and an index. The foreword is written by Roger Angell, stepson of E. B. White and an important figure in the world of American letters, where he recalls his memories about his stepfather and his writing habits.

The introduction is the one written by E. B. White for the 1979 edition. The introduction is an excellent essay on how to write effectively. White recounts his experiences with William Strunk, who taught him English and how he was entrusted with the task of revising and updating the little textbook written, published, and used by Professor Strunk for teaching English.

According to Professor Strunk, “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. This book will help you to do just that—to make every word tell.

The first part of the book is titled ‘The Elementary Rules of Usage.’ It contains rules for the correct usage. Each rule is illustrated with examples and made clear using explanations and comments. The second part contains elementary principles of composition. It contains principles that will make one’s writing clear, concise, interesting, and precise.

Part III titled ‘A Few Matters of Form,’ deals with the correct use like colloquialisms, exclamations, heading, hyphens, margins, numerals, etc. The fourth part explains the correct usage of commonly misused words and expressions.

Part V (An Approach to Style) is about writing that is captivating, interesting and correct. It contains advice drawn from a writer’s—E. B. White’s—experience of writing. It contains invaluable wisdom on how to use words and sentences to create magic. This chapter is reveals the secrets of the great writers and what differentiates masters of the craft from the rest.

The afterword by Charles Osgood explains why this small book should be a constant companion of all writers. The glossary contains a description of the technical terms with examples. The index is thorough and helps in improving the readability.

This book should be the daily companion for anyone who writes for a living and, for that matter, anyone who write at all.

Book Details:

• Author: William Strunk Jr. & E. B. White
• Publisher: Allyn & Bacon
• Edition & Year: Fourth, 1999
• ISBN: 0205313426
• Cover & Page Count: Hardcover, 105 Pages

You can order online at Amazon.

Copyright © Braintree Books. Reproduced with permission.

Since its first publication in 1976, On Writing Well by William Zinsser has become a classic guide on writing nonfiction. It has sold millions of copies and still is the number one book on writing nonfiction. According to New York Times, “On Writing Well is a bible for a generation of writers looking for clues to clean, compelling prose.”

The book has four parts in addition to an introduction, a bibliography and an index. The first part—Principles—contains seven chapters and deals with important aspects of writing like how to write clear, simple, and concise prose, the need and importance of reviewing, editing, and rewriting, how to avoid clutter, the importance of mastering the fundamentals, how to identify your audience and write for them, how to find the right words and where to find them, and so on. This section contains one of the most useful advices of this book:

The point is that you have to strip your writing down before you can build it back up. You must know what the essential tools are and what job they were designed to do. Extending the metaphor of carpentry, it’s first necessary to be able to saw wood neatly and to drive nails. Later you can bevel the edges or add elegant finials, if that’s your taste. But you can never forget that you are practicing a craft that’s based on certain principles. If the nails are weak, your house will collapse. If your verbs are weak and your syntax is rickety, your sentences will fall apart.

I’ll admit that certain nonfiction writers, like Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer, have built some remarkable houses. But these are writers who spent years learning their craft, and when at last they raised their fanciful turrets and hanging gardens, to the surprise of all of us who never dreamed of such ornamentation, they knew what they were doing. Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe.

The second part—Methods—deals with threes topics: unity, the lead and the ending, bits & pieces. In this part Zinsser explains one of the most fundamental truths of writing—“You learn to write by writing.” The first chapter in this section deals with the importance of unity—unity of pronoun, unity of tense, unity of mood, etc.—and why it is important to choose one unity and stick to it. The second chapter discusses the importance of leads (beginning) and ending. The author illustrates the various methods for writing captivating and interesting leads. He also tells us when and how to stop for maximum effect. In the chapter titled ‘Bits & Pieces’ the author deals with the correct usage of verbs, adverbs, adjectives, qualifiers, punctuation, and more. This is one of the best chapters of the book.

Part III (Forms), deals with the various forms of writing. The forms covered are nonfiction as literature, writing about people, places, yourself, science and technology, business, sports, arts, humor, etc. Each chapter gives valuable advice on how to make the writing interesting, how to find the right tone and mood and tips and techniques that the author has learned in his long and diverse writing career.

The fourth part—Attitudes—deals with issues like how to sound natural, how to handle fear, how to find confidence, and how to enjoy the writing process. It also discusses why it is important to write (at least during the initial stage of each writing project) without thinking about selling or getting published. According to the author:

Writing is related to character. If your values are sound, your writing will be sound. It all begins with intention. Figure out what you want to do and how you want to do it, and work your way with humanity and integrity to the completed article. Then you’ll have something to sell.

The chapter, A Writer’s Decisions, deals with the different decisions that a writer has to make during the writing process. With clear examples, the author illustrates how to create the leads, how to organize the content, what to include and what to omit, how to end, and so on. This part also has a chapter on how to write family histories and memoirs. The final chapter of the book is about how one becomes a writer, the importance of editors, and how to work with editors to improve the quality of your work.

This is a must read for every person, irrespective of the amount of writing he does. It should be a constant companion of all writers. The amount of wisdom, wisdom gained from years of practicing the craft, is invaluable and will help every reader to become a better writer. I strongly recommend this book to all and I end with another quote from the book:

Living is the trick. Writers who write interestingly tend to be men and women who keep themselves interested. That’s almost the whole point of becoming a writer. I’ve used writing to give myself an interesting life and a continuing education. If you write about subjects you think you would enjoy knowing about, your enjoyment will show in what you write. Learning is a tonic.

Book Details:

• Author: William Zinsser
• Publisher: Collins
• Year: 2006 (30^th Anniversary Edition)
• ISBN-10: 0060891548
• ISBN-13: 978-0060891541
• Cover & Page Count: Paperback, 336 Pages

You can order online at Amazon.