Customer Reviews

Techniques of the Selling Writer

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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.

I had published a fair amount of fiction BEFORE I read it. But reading Swain, having him help me take apart the structure of my scenes, the very order of the sentences in a paragraph, the order of words in a sentence, and to then change them for maximum power--wow! Since then I've published much more fiction, because I have an understanding of the techniques of writing. The selling parts of the book are things I've gotten elsewhere, but learning what makes good sentences, good scenes, balanced chapters--it's worth a fortune. This book and Gary Provost's MAKING YOUR WORDS WORK are the two best tools for writers I've found. And I'm saying this as my 1th book is about to come out, and my 500th shorter piece. Thanks, Dwight. Wish you were still around.

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 45 novels in all). I highly recommend it, not only for novices, but for all writers.

This is a tried and true classic among books on fiction writing.

This is a hefty read -- best digested in smaller portions, but well worth the effort. Swain takes separate looks on all aspects of story building -- characterization, plot, scene structure, etc., and pulls them apart to get to the basic elements. The approach is somewhat scholarly, but for those wrters who do study it, this book will definitely increase understanding of the interlocking components of great fiction.

Readers should remember that this book was first published decades ago. The markets -- especially book and short story markets - have changed quite a bit since then. Thus, the reader should take care to separate the craft advice - which is timeless -- from the advice related to selling, which may not be so timeless. Also, Swain does not give many examples, but the few that are given are, at times, somewhat obscure.

With only that caveat in mind, this book is one I'd expect to see on a serious writer's bookshelf.

I bought this book on account of all these rave reviews, and everyone was right - this is one of the very best books on writing fiction there is. I have over twenty, and even after all that, when reading yet another chapter on point of view is like slogging through sludge, Swain brings such refreshing verve and wit to the subject that everything seems new again. And it actually is, since he clues you in to key aspects you'd never considered before.

First, some clarifications - forget the title and the ugly cover. Rip them off, if you like. A better title would be "Techniques of the Dramatic Writer Who People Will Enjoy Reading." `Cause that's Swain's clarification - that this book isn't about pretentious writing for literary journals, and it's not about shallow novels or selling out. It's about solid storytelling and what engages audiences. What will, in the end, sell, simply because it's what publishers are looking for - novels with depth, feeling, and compelling characters that carries audiences along from one scene to the next.

Most books on writing stay at one level - the literary theories that just briefly touch on actual works you've heard of, and the cookie-cutter manuals that stay on the surface without giving you the tools or insight you're looking for. But here you find a combination of psychological depth and street wisdom that never floats off in heavy philosophy and yet never sinks to crude sketches for the popular market. It tells you how to write with both emotional insight and compelling action.

To top it off, Swain not only gives you the basic story structure of a hero facing conflict, but also gives a few nuggets I haven't seen in other books, such as curtain lines, scene and sequel, pet fragments, simultaneity, framing tightly in close-ups, reaction sentences, and the hero's stated goal vs. their true goal. The section on wish fulfillment was especially enlightening. There's also sections on a writer's life and being productive - including fifty pages on Planning, Preparation, and Production - that are sharp and true to life.

"The best observation anyone can make on preparation, planning, and production is that everyone has a God-given right to go to hell in his own way - and don't let anyone kid you out of yours."

Sitting down with this book is like sitting down at an all-night diner with a straight-talking veteran like Gene Hackman and having him lay out the terrain for you. Sketching phrases on napkins and crossing out words, telling you stories about fellow writers, and always setting up dramatic situations and how you can make them better. Spinning out stories about the waitress and explaining between goals of achievement and goals of resistance and how her boss's reaction could be the key.

Swain's enthusiasm is uplifting, his candor refreshing, his insight exactly what you need. He even breaks up each chapter into sections, so there's barely a single page with a solid wall of prose. For instance, the sections on increasing tension include 1) Build with scenes, 2) Don't confuse delay with complication, 3) Tie your characters to your story, 4) Balance your forces, 5) Have enough at stake, 6) Force continuing adjustments, 7) Keep the action rising, 8) Box in your hero, and 9) Drop a corpse through the roof.

Each of these is given a half page or more of explanation: "Your job is to spot holes and plug them; to foresee escape routes and block them; to cut off your hero from all apparent hope. If you don't, your reader's going to see those holes, and scream because your hero doesn't duck out through one."

It clocks in at 320 pages, jumps right in on the very first page, and though written in 1965, it's dated only by the magazines it names, mentions of typewriters, and a funny line about computer tubes. You still find the usual Steinbeck, Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and Travis McGee. Everything else is as timeless advice as Shakespeare or Stephen King would give.

(For a pointer, it helps if you already have a few stories under your arm to check with Swain's advice as you go along. Also, when he mentions character types, or dramatic reversals, write in the margins the books and movies you've seen this in. It'll sharpen your perception and help you make the connections between what he's talking about and the works you've always enjoyed. And finally, Chap. 3 is good, but can be skipped to get right to the best parts.)

My only regret is that I wasn't given this book in college, rather than the stale, technical wish-wash that made writing fiction seem like typing up doctorates to please your professors. Those books one had to sit down and slog through, but this one I always looked forward to, knowing that even the things I already knew would be told with bold, brash wit and made new again. Which is, actually, what good writing is all about.

This book is about YOU, about what excites YOU as a writer. Are you worried there wont be a single soul willing to read your books and the subjects you choose for them? Don't worry! IF YOU DARE TO WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU LIKE, YOU WILL REACH THOUSANDS OF READERS WHO WILL BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO BUY YOUR BOOKS. There is a very simple reason for this, just search it in the book.

"Techniques of the selling writer" is a MUST for you the aspiring writer and it is also for the not-quite-there-yet professional writer. Really, as I read it I could not believe how this author managed to get so much valuable advice in so few pages (330 p.).

The title might stir two feelings in you: you are either interested because you want to become the next Stephen King and make money, or you are inmediately discouraged because you want to become a respected fiction artist and money isn't your business. Either way if you read this book you will be steps closer to your goal.

So, this book does not tell you what subjects you need to write about. It is about building a bridge between you and YOUR audience. It is about how to build a good story, and how to tell it in an exciting original manner.

Reader's emotions, writer's freedom, story success, climax, conflict, vividness, passion, pleasure, tension, satisfaction, confidence, the writer's life...

I just read this book and I'm very excited about it. If you read my other reviews you'll see that I have read many books on writing fiction, and the more I read the more difficult I am to please. I get more picky and I can quickly distinguish between absolute garbage and pure genius!

What impresses me most of this book is that for a long time I've had questions about how to build a story, how to use point of view, how to stir emotions in the reader, how to build the climax. I have had to search for this info in different books. But in "Techniques of the selling writer" you will find very insigthfull comments about all this topics. Also I noticed he mention a very subtle yet extremely important aspect with regard to world building. I was very excited when I read it. It was like adding a missing piece of the complex puzzle of story telling.

Also he has some comments that sound like zen for writers and I really liked them.

There is something you might find odd with this book. You see the title has the word "SELLING", so you might expect a great deal of advice on how to sell your work. NOPE. The chapter "Selling your stories" in less than a page long. Still, it contains probably the most important and still very common sense advice on how to sell your stories. No marketing tricks, no sophisticated selling gimmicks... Just three simple steps that you need to follow during your entire writing life.

I'm so happy I bought it! Every time I buy a how-to fiction book I fear. I fear it might not be good. After all I have read some pretty good books but sometimes I have also had the terrible experience of buying lousy books. But when the book arrived... when I started reading it... when I realized this was a book I would want to read more than a couple times... That's when I realized how lucky I was for buying it!

Please, just do your self a favour and buy this book. As I read it I can imagine all those fabulous best-seller's writers. I can imagine how they must have begun crafting great stories AFTER reading this book. This book is so good that I don't think I'll find a better one to review in quite a while.

Almost everything I would like to find in a "how-to write fiction book" is right in here!

In case you still have doubts, just do a search online. You will find out it's regarded by many as one of the best books ever on how to write great stories! I mean, come on, a book that has lasted more than 40 years as a MUST... it sure must be.

When it comes to the art of writing, put Dwight Swain in the coveted class of Strunk and White. What that respected duo does for writing style, Swain does for writing technique. With nary a wasted word, he rips away all the mystery, all the obfuscation from everything from character to conflict to complication, plus a lot more. No question about it: His "Techniques of the Selling Writer" IS--and should be--the writer's bible.

Jules Sanders

Buy it, study it, apply it and Swain's classic will give you your PhD in fiction craft. In NovelPro, I recommend it above all other fiction technique books. Swain has been copied, but not surpassed.

Dwight Swain's book will be castigated by those who relish the fog of enigma to shroud the magic of their creative efforts. But for those writers or wannabe's who have been looking for the ultimate "how to" book, this is it. Swain pops the hood and gets down to the essential drive train; and he explains all the parts along the way. This book is so unlike every other book on writing fiction it's shocking.

I have little use for books on how to write, but Dwight Swaine's Techniques is an exception. I don't know anyone in my racket who can't benefit from at least one of the chapters in this work. It has been around a long time because it talks about permanent factors.

I unhesitatingly recommend this book to anyone who wants to make a living at writing.

Jerry Pournelle
Former President, SFWA; four time NYT Bestseller