Customer Reviews

The Writer's Digest Guide to Good Writing

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you can buy only one book on writing then this is it. It's filled with informative articles from Writer's Digest magazine written by the best of the best--from Ginsburg to King.

You will learn everything from theme to plotting to building believable characters.

I highly recommend The Writer's Digest Guide to Good Writing.

The book is an anthology of essays cobbled together by the senior editor of WRITERS DIGEST for their 75th anniversary.

Some of the essays are incoherent, some are sublime, and most are the usual stuff that reveals little about the nuts & bolts of writing.

I found the essays from the 1920s to be excellent. The rest failed to impress me. The collection of cameo quips by famous authors was a disappointment.

The back cover of The Writer's Digest Guide to Good Writing says the ``advice in this book is timeless.'' And for the most part it is and will feel familiar to anybody who has been reading the Writer's Digest magazine for even a few years because almost everything here has been repeated in the magazine in numerous ways. There was very little new advice here for me, and while a few of the essays were worthwhile I doubt I will pick this book up again for reference. I say this book is only for someone who doesn't read the magazine and wants to get a feel for what the magazine offers. For more in-depth book reviews I've done, search for goldenrulecomics on the Squidoo website.