Dwight Swain - Techniques of the Selling Writer

This book is dense in its guidelines for writing fiction that sells. It is one of the most useful books on how to write a novel. Swain walks the reader through the pitfalls and choices of characterization and plotting more thoroughly than in any other writing book I have read. Other writers, I know, have made flow charts using his book and used them for writing books that have sold. There is, perhaps, not enough credit given to the natural flow of story, to the magic of the muse. Swain provides the anatomy for a novel but (perhaps deliberately) seems to ignore the spirit and soul. Beginning novelists in particular can benefit from what he says. His ideas are more completely expressed than those of most other how-to books on writing. His style is not easy; it has certain characteristics of textbook. But it is truthful and seems written with the sincere attempt to guide someone in writing fiction that sells--above simply making money himself.