Murder Your Darlings And Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser is as the author describes “a writing book about writing books”. Is there any better kind of book? The thirty-two chapters (excluding the Introduction and Afterword) are split between six parts: Language and Craft, Voice and Style, Confidence and Identity, Storytelling and Character, Rhetoric and Audience, and Mission and Purpose.
Extracts from more than fifty writing guides are included to underpin each lesson. Clark also draws on his own life experiences as a Writer, Journalist, and Teacher of Writing. Be prepared to add more books to your shelves as Clark has the ability to make every author and book sound intriguing and essential. This book is for writers who are serious about their writing. It opens up writing as a discipline worth further exploration and study.
A Sample of Lessons
- Read bad writing so that you know what not to write, (from On Writing: A memoir of the Craft by Stephen King).
- Writing conventions may be abandoned in preference for individual style (from the classic bestseller The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White).
- Accept that you are a writer and then use all your resources to become so much more (from Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life by Natalie Goldberg and The Way of the Writer: Reflections on the Art and Craft of Storytelling by Charles Johnson).
About Roy Peter Clark
Roy Peter Clark is a senior scholar and vice president at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies (a well-known Journalism school and research organisation in Florida). Clark has published seven books on the writing craft, as well as authoring and editing several books on Journalism. Having taught writing for more than thirty years to students and organisations, he is often referred to as ‘America’s favourite Writing Coach’.
His first book, Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, was published in 2006 (another five writing tools were added to a tenth-anniversary edition in 2016). His other books on the craft of writing include The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English; Help! For Writers: 210 Solutions to the Problems Every Writer Faces; How to Write Short: Word Craft for Fast Times; Murder Your Darlings: And Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser; The Art of X-Ray Reading: How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing; and Tell It Like It Is: A Guide to Clear and Honest Writing.
