Techniques of the Selling Writer | Dwight V. Swain

Techniques of the Selling Writer | Dwight V. Swain | this book is different from other 'How To' books on writing fiction

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Techniques of the ...

	Techniques of the Selling Writer Dwight V. Swain University of Oklahoma Press, 1982 - 330 pages average customer review:based on 43 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Like getting a PhD

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.

this book is different from other 'How To' books on writing fiction

Why is this book different?

I think people who are capable in any area can generally be separated into two types:

Unconsciously competent and consciously competent.

The unconsciously competent writer, if she/he tries to teach someone else, can often do
more damage than if they had never tried to teach.

Why?

1) ) the writer, being unconsciously competent, truly has no idea how she came up with what she does.,
and 2) Because teaching is a separate skill.

So the only ones who have any business writing a book on writing are the ones who consciously figured out how to solve the weaknesses in their writing.

But there are problems here as well. 1) Anyone who had ALL the potential problems a writer might have and figured out how to solve them would be in a nursing home by the time they 'got it down.' Thus any successful writer is going to have blind
spots because any person with EVERY writing problem won't keep trying long enough to figure them all out---life is too short. 2) Were the things these writers figured out truly salient?
3) Do they truly remember what they did to solve the problem?
4) Is their solution idiosyncratic to that particular writer, ("generalizable" to others) or not?
5) The writer is instinctively 'good' at other areas, but the beginner may need specific help in that particular area. Finally, the writer has to be able to teach (with all the multitude of problems in any teaching situation.)

This is why, in my opinion, many writing books are like nuggets of gold buried in tons of chaff. The 'chaff' represents all the blind-spots described above.

To convey an idea of how good this book is, let me use an extended metaphor.

Let's say a foundation funded a study to see if 'the average person who reads for fun' can be taught to 'write a reasonably enjoyable short story.'

A group of a dozen editors is paid to read through 100 manuscripts. These manuscripts range from the worst examples of writing from a freshman writing class to professionally
written, publishable stories. The editors rank the manuscripts into piles of "good", "mediocre" and "bad."
Any manuscript in which there is a major disagreement is discarded. So the study is left with 30 manuscripts that ALL the editors can agree rank into "good", "mediocre" and "bad." The "mediocre" manuscripts are then dropped, leaving 20 total
manuscripts: 10 "good," and 10 "bad."

The study researchers start with 1000 people who read for fun and have never considered writing as a vocation. The designers of this study need to weed out people who can't recognize a decent piece of writing from bad. In other words they need to weed out people with a 'tin ear' for writing. The 1000 subjects are asked to read 20 manuscripts and to rate them in terms of writing quality.

Those subjects who were able to distinguish the "good" ten from the "bad" ten are selected.

This leaves a group of 300 people who can recognize decent writing and poor writing, but have no idea "why."

Each month the 300 "writer-researchers" sit down and each write out a short story. They then meet and discuss each story in terms of what works and what does not. After much discussion,
they start with sentences as a basic unit of analysis. They agree as to what makes for a 'good' sentence. Then they go back and write another story. Now things get very tough, because things are very muddled. They're following the rules for 'good' prose sentences, but some of the manuscripts are barely readable. After a comparison of the 'readable' ones with the 'unreadable' ones, the 300 focus in on motivating stimulus
& response units as the next big area of failure.

This process of writing, analysis, agreement on new techniques, and writing is repeated for several years until finally each of the 300 people can write a 'reasonably readable and enjoyable story.' Naturally, there is considerable variance in insight into human nature, facility with metaphors, and so forth. But ALL the stories are 'reasonably readable and enjoyable,' even if the characters vary widely in their interest to the
reader. In short, they are publishable, though certainly only one or two may be good enough to wind up in the Atlantic.

The 'writer-researchers' then collect their techniques and insights into one handbook.

Such a handbook would avoid many of the above mentioned pitfalls of writing books. It would focus on letting the writer discover what the "why"s of particular writing problems without didactically saying as most writing books do, "This is MY way of
solving the problem, it works for me, I'm published, so you should listen to me."

In my opinion, "Techniques of the Selling Writer" by Dwight Swain is the closest thing to such a handbook as I've seen. It's amazing, and worth far more than the asking price.

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Best Damn book for writers ever published

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.

Simple, Do-It-Yourself Guide for Fiction Writing

Techniques of the Selling Writer is one of the best guides to fiction writing that I have come across. Unlike a lot of other fancily written and verbose ficiton-reference books out there today, in which authors boast about their own techniques, or give overly complicated advice, this is simple, easy to read and learn from, and very informative.

It is an excellent guidebook for any budding author, and I have found it extremely helpful in my own writing. I have re-written my own novel since reading this book by Dwight V Swain, and I am most pleased with the results. Its advice has brought new life to my writing, and I recommend it to anyone who is about to write a novel.

Chris

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A clear concise guide to writing

This book is a must not only for beginners but also for those who are not.
Its good for beginners because its comprehensive and clear, and covers the A to Z of creative writing from what to write, the processes of writing (how) and whom to write to.
It's a must for those who know how to write because it explains clearly why a writer must sometimes do certain things that he doesn't want to and why he must avoid things he wants to. The book also conceptualises and explains things that many good writers do instinctively. It's important to know why, isn't it?
To write books on writing its not enough just to be a writer, its important to be a good teacher. And Dwight V. Swain in an excellent teacher.
Overall, this book is value for money because there is a lot in it, and all subjects are covered in detail. I am not saying that this is the only book on writing that you need ever buy but if you want a comprehensive look at the subject of how to write fiction then this is it.

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