Published in 1965, Dwight V. Swain’s “Techniques of the Selling Writer,” some feel, is a bit outdated. Written before the ubiquitous word processor, Google, and AI gives the book some age; however, after reading the book once and studying through it a second time, I think the book has good information. It is still in print, which speaks about the book’s endurance. The book has information for a freshman writer, like myself, or a senior writer. I’ll be studying through the book again and presenting some of my observations.
Dwight Swain (1915-1992) began his writing career in the 1930s. From publishing short stories, his writing evolved to include mysteries, westerns, and action-adventure stories. He was also a screenwriter.
Swain taught in the Professional Writing Program at the University of Oklahoma, where he oversaw the development of student writers. Students in the program submitted writing assignments. From these submissions, Swain drew many illustrations used to support his points in his nonfiction books about writing, such as Techniques of the Selling Writer, the focus of this discussion.
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Chapter 1 – Fiction and You —-Writer’s Trap One – An Unrealistic View —-Writer’s Trap Two – The Search for Magic Secrets —-Writer’s Trap Three – Learning the Hard Way —-Writer’s Trap Four – Failing to Follow feelings —-Writer’s Trap Five – Writing by Rules —-Writer’s Trap Six – Far of Being Wrong —-Writer’s Trap Seven – Bowing to the Objective —-Writer’s Trap Eight – Failing to Master the Technique |
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Chapter 2 – The Words You Write —-Writers and Their Words |
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Chapter 3 – Plain Facts About Feelings —-Plain Facts About Feelings |
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Chapter 4 – Conflict and How to Build it —-Building Scenes in Fiction Writing —-Building a Sequel in Fiction Writing —-Writing the Sequel Chapter 5 – Fiction Strategy —-Fiction Strategy |
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