Includes bibliographical references (pages 319-328) and index.

A writing book about writing books -- Language and craft. Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch : Murder your darlings ; William Zinsser : Find and cut the clutter ; Donald Hall : Learn to live inside words ; George Campbell : Shape a sentence for the desired effect ; John McPhee : Work from a plan -- Voice and style. William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White : Recognize two contradictory meanings of style ; Gary Provost and Ursula K. Le Guin : Vary sentence length to create a pleasing rhythm ; Vera John-Steiner : Use visual markings to spark your creative process ; Constance Hale and Jessie Scanlon : Tune your voice for the digital age ; Ben Yagoda : Turn the dials that adjust the way you sound as a writer -- Confidence and identity. Donald Murray : Learn the steps of the writing process ; Anne Lamott : Keep writing - things will get better ; Peter Elbow : Write freely to discover what you want to say ; Dorothea Brande and Brenda Ueland : Say it loud : "I am a writer" ; Stephen King : Develop the writing habit -- Storytelling and character. Brian Boyd : Understand the value of storytelling ; James Wood : Prefer the complex human narrator ; Northrop Frye : Write for sequence, then for theme ; Lajos Egri : Distill your story into five words - maybe three ; E. M. Forster : Add dimension to characters ; Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe : Report for story -- Rhetoric and audience. Louise M. Rosenblatt : Anticipate the needs of readers ; Quintilian : Embrace rhetoric as the source of language power ; Aristotle : Influence the emotional responses of your audience ; Vivian Gornick and Mary Karr : Sign a social contract with the reader ; Rudolf Flesch and Robert Gunning : Write to the level of your reader - and a little higher -- Mission and purpose. S. I Hayakawa : Learn the strategies that make reports reliable ; Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer : Write to make your soul grow ; Horace : Write to delight and instruct ; Edward R. Murrow : Become the eyes and ears of the audience ; Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Neil Postman : Choose advocacy over propaganda ; Natalie Goldberg and Charles Johnson : Be a writer - and so much more -- Appendix : Books by Roy Peter Clark.

A collection of over a hundred writing tips gleaned from fifty popular writing books. Chapters are devoted to each key strategy. Author expands and contextualizes original authors' suggestions and shares how each tip helped other authors improve their skills.