Creative Writer's Style Guide: Rules and Advice for Writing Fiction and Creative Nonfiction (Hardcover)

by Christopher T. Leland (Author) "Like Maria in The Sound of Music, we're going to "start at the very beginning, a very good place to start..." (more)
Key Phrases: terminal punctuation, creative prose, apprentice writers, World War, Mark Twain, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This book arises out of twenty-five years of both writing fiction and teaching creative writing at university level. Its purpose is to provide a helpful and easy to follow reference guide to Story Press grammar and mechanics that is specifically addressed to writers of fiction and creative non-fiction. The Creative Writer's Style Guide provides the rules of grammar, punctuation and style as well as great advice on effective writing. Beginners and more experienced writers - as well as editors and agents who have struggled to adapt the standard style manual rules to the particular demands of fiction and memoir writing will find the answers they need here.

About the Author
Christopher Leland is the author of four novels as well as The Art of Compelling Fiction. He is the head of the creative writing program at Wayne State University and has taught at a number of universities across the USA, including Harvard and Bennington.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Writers Digest Books (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884910556
• ISBN-13: 978-1884910555
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #774,314 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful, useful, useful., May 22, 2003

By	JEFF F. HAINES "Jeff F. Haines" (Arcata, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It's just another style guide, right?

You won't think so after reading it, and refering to it, and wearing out its jacket and not giving a darn.

This is not your English teacher's grammar guide. It's for YOU, the writer.

Part I is dedicated to grammar issues as they apply to the creative writer. Part II dedicated to issues of style.

Both parts are valuable. It's a great refresher course in usage, and it's the first one I've ever read that hasn't made me feel as though I were doing homework. If only I could have had it in my hands that time on the dentist's operating chair when he yanked my back left molar. It's so much easier a read than pulling teeth, and it can make you forget the pains of the real world. And it absolutely beats that grueling pain of suddenly feeling lost, while writing, as you come to a who/whom sentence construction . . . or, for this matter, to a question of properly typing ellipses.

I improved the technical aspects of my prose after reading this book. I knew better how to discover my mistakes, and I knew better how to break the rules. I broke those rules with confidence, consciously. Just the same, I learned when breaking the rules was not effective.

I've used The Creative Writer's Style Guide time and time again. It won't collect dust on your bookshelf.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Do you need another style guide?, February 8, 2003

By	Kirby Adams (Lansing, MI United States) - See all my reviews

Every writer has (or SHOULD have!) Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" on their shelf, so why do you need another style guide? Well, for one thing Strunk doesn't have references to Limp Bizkit or the September 11 attacks. This is a new book with reference to pop culture and more modern writing methods and styles. The rest of it is the same as any other good style guide, but the parts devoted to nuances of creative fiction and topics of interest to writers of today are worth the price of the book. You don't find many style guides that discuss the pros and cons of peppering your dialogue with realistic use of obscenities and profanity - something worth thinking about.

Keep Strunk and White within arm's reach by your dictionary and thesaurus, but make a spot for this book somewhere on your writing shelf.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nuts & Bolts for Fiction Writers, December 4, 2006

By	M. T. Maniaci - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This volume is full of practical advice for fiction writers presented in a funny, accessible manner. Leland ranges from mechanics (setting and punctuating dialogue/internal dialogue) to issues of style (how to handle slang and colloquialisms). In short, a whole wealth of information that your MLA or Chicago Manual of Style, with their focus on business and academic writing, won't touch on.