Elements of the Writing Craft: Robert Olmstead

Books about writing nearly always disappoint me by promising a lot more than they actually deliver, or straying into the "self-help" category without offering any solid writing advice. Olmstead's "Elements of the Writing Craft" is one of those rare modest gems that gets down to business and stays on track from start to finish, doing exactly what it promises to do: give aspiring writers a no-nonsense crash course in prose. Each section is well defined and has an accompanying quotation to illustrate its point. Anyone interested in improving their writing, whether in fiction or nonfiction, will find it difficult to put down.

Often when I come across a book considered a guide for fiction writers, I feel first an excitement and then a letdown. So many of these books are impractical and strictly theoretical, never allowing you to move easily from idea to example. Olmstead's book is the exception. In it, he has considered nearly every way writers tell stories, provided excellent examples of their methods and explained the effect, and followed these with exercises for the reader/writer. A number of my short stories contain passages that began as products of these exercises. You can't beat that for practicality. If you write, and you want to expand your understanding of crafting your stories, buy this book. Read it as a companion to John Gardner's Art of Fiction.