Review: Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer (1965)

[truepenny]

Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


First, a warning: it is very 1965 in this book. There's only one racist joke, but the misogyny is everywhere, both in Swain's assumption that all characters and writers are male by default, and in the off-hand treatment of wife-beating. He's also writing for a market environment that largely isn't there anymore.

Second: for most of the book, Swain is laying out the formula that he says will result in "good" stories. (I put "good" in quotation marks because I'm not sure Swain and I agree on what a good story is.) His formula is a successful one (I recognize it in the Marvel movies, for example), but it is definitely a formula and it only really leads to writing the one kind of story. (Swain thinks there IS only one kind of story.) It's like a recipe, and the recipe for Key Lime Pie is all well and good unless what you're hankering for is German Black Forest Cake. Or beignets.

Third: and then at the end he goes and offers some really good practical advice about being a writer and motivating yourself to work and things like that, and that part is both insightful and useful.

So, on average, three stars.



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