Techniques of the Selling Writer (50 page)

APPENDIX B

For Further Reading

It does a writer no harm to read what others have to say about writing. Sometimes
he even picks up a new idea!

The books here listed are among those I’ve found helpful and/or stimulating. As such,
they represent personal taste and nothing more, but you may enjoy some of them too.

Included also are a few titles on such related topics as imagination, interviewing,
psychology and research, plus key fictional works to which reference is made in the
text.

The editions listed are those that happen to be on my own shelves.

Adams, Clifton.
The Dangerous Days of Kiowa Jones
. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1963.

Allen, Walter (ed.).
Writers on Writing
. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. (Everyman Paperbacks), 1959.

Barzun, Jacques, and Graff, Henry F.
The Modern Researcher
. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World (Harbinger Books), 1962.

Bedford-Jones, H.
This Fiction Business
. New York: Covici-Friede, 1929.

          
.
The Graduate Fictioneer
. Denver: Author & Journalist Publ. Co., 1932.

Brean, Herbert (ed.).
The Mystery Writer’s Handbook
. New York: Harper & Bros., 1956.

Campbell, Walter S.
Writing: Advice and Devices
. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1959.

          
.
Writing Magazine Fiction
. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1940.

Cowley, Malcolm.
The Literary Situation
. New York: Viking Press, 1958.

—— (ed.).
Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews
. New York: Viking Press, 1958.

Egri, Lajos.
The Art of Dramatic Writing
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1946.

          
.
Your Key to Successful Writing
. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1952.

Elwood, Maren.
Characters Make Your Story
. Boston: The Writer, Inc., 1949.

Fink, David.
Release from Nervous Tension
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1953.

Fischer, John, and Silvers, Robert B.
Writing in America
. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1960.

Frankau, Pamela.
Pen to Paper
. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1962.

Fuller, Edmund.
Man in Modern Fiction
. New York: Random House (Vintage Books), 1958.

Gallaway, Marian.
Constructing a Play
. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1950.

Harral, Stewart.
Keys to Successful Interviewing
. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954.

Harris, Foster.
The Basic Formulas of Fiction
. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1944.

          
.
The Basic Patterns of Plot
. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959.

          
.
The Look of the Old West
, New York: Viking, 1955.

Hayakawa, S. I.
Language in Thought and Action
. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1949.

Hull, Helen (ed.).
The Writer’s Book
. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1956.

          
, and Drury, Michael (eds.).
Writer’s Roundtable
. New York: Harper & Bros., 1959.

Hutchinson, Eliot D.
How to Think Creatively
. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1949.

Jaffe, Rona.
The Best of Everything
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1958.

Kerr, Walter.
How Not to Write a Play
. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1955.

Macgowan, Kenneth.
A Primer of Playwriting
. New York: Doubleday & Co. (Dolphin Books), 1962.

McGraw, Eloise Jarvis.
Techniques of Fiction Writing
. Boston: The Writer, Inc., 1959.

McHugh, Vincent.
Primer of the Novel
. New York: Random House, 1950.

Maugham, W. Somerset.
The Art of Fiction
. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1955.

          
.
The Summing Up
. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1938.

          
.
A Writer’s Notebook
. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1949.

Mundy, Talbot. “The Soul of a Regiment.” In
Adventure
magazine, November 1950.

Noyes, Arthur P.
Modern Clinical Psychiatry
. 4th ed.,
Chapter 4
, “Mental Mechanisms and Their Functions.” Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1953.

Osborn, Alex.
Your Creative Power
. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948.

Palmer, Stuart.
Understanding Other People
. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1955.

Peeples, Edwin A.
A Professional Storyteller’s Handbook
. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1960.

Ray, Marie Beynon.
The Importance of Feeling Inferior
. New York: Ace Books, 1957.

Read, Herbert.
English Prose Style
. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.

Reynolds, Paul R.
The Writer and His Markets
. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1959.

Smith, Helen Reagan.
Basic Story Techniques
. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964.

Trask, Georgianne, and Burkhart, Charles (eds.).
Storytellers and Their Art
. New York: Doubleday & Co. (Anchor Books), 1963.

Vale, Eugene.
The Technique of Screenplay Writing
. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1972.

Yoakem, Lola G. (ed.).
TV and Screen Writing
. Article, “The Opening Scenes,” by Frank S. Nugent. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1958.

Index

Special thanks are due my good friend-by-mail, Phyllis A. Whitney, fine author of
romantic novels of suspense, for generously allowing me to use her notes in preparing
this index. She is, of course, in no wise responsible for its imperfections.

Books listed in
Appendix B
(For Further Reading), pages 321–23, are not included in this index.

Page numbers refer to the print edition but are hyperlinked to the appropriate location
in the e-book.

Abie's Irish Rose:
225

Accretion, in building story:
217

Ace Books:
268

Action:
180–81

Adams, Clifton:
50
,
306–307

Adjectives:
29–30

Adverbs:
30
,
33

Aftermath:
98

Agents:
310

Alcohol:
309

Algren, Nelson:
245

Amazing Stories:
268

American Girl, The:
2

Analog:
268

Apollonius of Tyana:
5

Aristotle:
166

Arrangement of material:
23–24

Arsenic and Old Lace:
227

Baines, Scattergood:
248

Balancing forces:
174–75

Baldwin, Faith:
3

Balzac, Honore de:
301

Barrett, Neal, Jr.:
312

Barzun, Jacques:
275

Be yourself:
261

Bedford-Jones, H.:
122

Beginning, the:
137–66
; end of,
163–66

Behavior:
238

Berkley Books:
268

Best of Everything, The:
264

Bickham, Jack M.:
312

Black Mask:
142

Blavatsky, Mme. Helena:
5

Blocks to writing:
299–309

Bogging down:
169

Boxing in hero:
177–78

Brown, Fredric:
217

Browne, Howard:
vii
,
179
,
244
,
307

Cagliostro, Count Alessandro, di:
5

Caine Mutiny, The:
299

Campbell, Walter S.:
viii
,
103
,
312

Carey, Philip:
225

Categories:
267–68

Cause and effect:
51–53
,
238

Chandler, Raymond:
13
,
118

Change:
48–51

Characters:

—age,
266–67

—as story element,
132–34

—background,
232–35

—bringing to life,
223–30

—characterizing act,
153–54

—creating,
216–22

—dominant impression,
223–24

—dossiers,
222

—fitting character to role,
249–57

—fitting impression to role,
224–25

—focal,
41–46

—giving direction to,
230–39

—goal,
85–87
,
90
,
93–94
,
105–106
,
205–10
,
230–31

—growth,
220–21

—hero,
249–51

—heroine,
254

—identification with,
239–48

—in-depth,
256–57

—introduction of,
152–57

—matching to cast,
226

—minor,
221–22

—modifying,
225–26

—necessary,
219

—number of,
219

—originating,
216–22

—psychology,
222
,
230–39

—sensitive,
254–56

—sex,
267

—tags,
226–29

—traits essential to,
152

—vs. “real” people,
219–20

—viewpoint,
115–57

—villain,
95
,
251–54

Character reaction:
53–60
,
63–68

—necessary elements,
68–70

—order of presentation,
56–60

Checklist of personal writing faults:
308

Churchill, Winston:
34

Climax:
122–30
,
171–82
,
187–200

—easy road,
191

—role of impulse,
190

Commitment:
163–66

Company K:
46

Comparison:
30

Compensation:
230–31
,
235–36

Complication:
171–74

Compression:
109–11

Conflict:
84–115
,
174–75
; and opposition,
87–89
,
90–91

Connotation:
30–32

Continuing elaboration:
272–73

Contradiction:
242

Contrast:
30
,
238
,
270

Controlling destiny:
230
,
245

Copy, vivid:
22
,
25–30

Corson, Martha:
312

Courage:
240
,
243
,
244

Creativity:
269–73

Credibility:
109
,
112–13

Cronin, A. J.:
261

Cutting:
298–99

Daly, Carroll John:
142–43

Dangerous Days of Kiowa Jones, The:
50

Decision:
100–103
,
137
,
183–84

Delay vs. complication:
173–74

Denotation:
30–32

Description:
23–24

Desire:
137
,
166

Destiny, control of:
230
,
245

Detail:
74–75
; significant,
146–47

Dewlen, Al:
312

Diadem, Harry:
248

Dialogue:
159
,
227

Die A Little Every Day:
312

Dilemma:
101–103

Direction, in character:
230–39

Disaster:
85
,
89–90
,
91
,
132–35

Disastrous, the:
243–44

Doubleday & Co., Inc.:
2
,
265

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan:
215
,
247

Elaboration, continuing:
272–73

Elements of story:
131–35

Eliot, T. S.:
223

Emotion:
6–9
,
39–40
,
42–45
,
54–60
,
70–77
,
126
,
177
,
246–47
,
259
,
260
,
304

End:
187–214

—climax,
188–99

—resolution,
200–213

Entertainment:
264–65

Enthusiasm:
259–60

Eternal Fire:
248

Excitement for writer:
269

Exercise:
290

Exposition:
160
,
163

Fact, defined:
39–41
; vs. feeling,
14–18

Farm Journal:
276

Faulkner, William:
179

Feeling, defined:
259