Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing: A Novelist Looks at His Craft - Hardcover

Morrell, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582971439 ISBN 13: 9781582971438

Publisher: Writers Digest Books, 2002

Synopsis

Best-selling novelist David Morrell provides insights and advice learned during thirty years of writing and selling novels--insider secrets that are sure to help writers achieve the next level of literary success, whether they're just beginning or already published!

With captivating anecdotes and thoughtful discussion, Morrell explores the basics of the writing craft, from structure and character to dialogue and style, allowing readers to look into the mind of an internationally known best-selling novelist. He also examines how to get published, the business of writing and the steps for getting fiction translated into film.

About this title

Review:

Distinctions are often made between writers of "literature" and writers of popular fiction. The two seem to come together in David Morrell, author of Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing. Morrell writes thrillers--lots of them--including First Blood, which gave the world Rambo. But Morrell was also a longtime literature professor. He is as likely to quote E.M. Forster as he is Lawrence Block; Steve McQueen appears on the same page as Henry James. Lessons is a lovely examination of writing and the writing life. To read it is to put oneself in the company of a writerly raconteur. Toward the beginning of the book, he discusses Hemingway's bizarre upbringing, wartime experiences, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Toward the end, he reveals the secret to bribing the dispatchers and drivers who supply airport bookstores (a hint rarely, if ever before, reported in a writing book). With chapters devoted to plot, character, research, structure, viewpoint, and dialogue, Morrell covers all the basics. But this is less a how-to book than a written rendition of an intimate university writing workshop. "There are no inferior types of fiction," Morrell implores, "only inferior practitioners of them." --Jane Steinberg

About the Author:

David Morrell is the author of six New York Times bestsellers. His 15 novels have sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and have been translated into twenty-two languages. He is best known for his first novel, First Blood, which was later converted into a blockbuster film, and Brotherhood of the Rose. Six of his other novels have been sold or optioned to film companies. David lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

About this edition

• Publisher: Writers Digest Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1582971439
• ISBN 13: 9781582971438
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 243