The Copyeditor's Desk

The woods are full of how-to books for would-be writers. Most of them rehash the same old same-old advice (how many different ways can you say “read the publication before you submit a query; write a query letter before you send a submission”?). A rare few, though, contain some genuinely valuable advice. Here are the ones I find worth reading.

William Strunk and E. B. White, The Elements of Style

Christopher Vogler, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers and Screenwriters. Revised in 2002 as The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, 3rd Edition, by Christopher Vogler and Michele Montez.

Benton Rain Patterson, Write to Be Read

Beth Luey, Handbook for Academic Authors

Clay Schoenfeld, Effective Feature Writing

And BTW, I believe my own book, The Essential Feature, is one of the best guides to magazine and newspaper writing on the market.

Related posts:

• What Editors Wish Authors Knew
• Five Things You Can Do for Your Authors
• Manuscripts: Saving Time and Money, 1

Tags: writers, writing

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 7:05 pm and is filed under style, tight writing, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.