Dwight Swain

Master Writing Teacher

By: Dwight Swain

Narrated by: Dwight Swain

One of the best writing teachers in the English language on how to structure your novel and how to build strong story people who will enrich your fiction.

Structuring Your Novel

A step-by-step guide to writing stories you can sell. Learn how to:

• Conceive and cast your work
• Find the spine
• Drive the plot forward
• Use scene and sequel as building blocks
• Create conflict
• Use the springboard scene
• And much, much more!

How to Build Fictional Characters

Learn how to:

• Create memorable heroes and villains
• Make your characters likeable
• Give your characters purpose
• Put story people in danger
• Discover a character's attitude and motivation

©1992 Dwight Swain (P)2003 Writer's AudioShop

better than Stein On Writing

Far better than Stein On Writing. If you are tired of snarky, literary types teaching you how to write, then you'll love Swain.

3 ½ stars.

Might be good for an author just starting out. Might be good for authors who feel stuck and could use a nudge. The best part is you can listen while driving your car. Dwight Swain published a lot of fiction as well as some how-to-write books. This audiobook is two lectures he gave around 1991 for writer workshops.

Many of his thoughts are simple and obvious. Example: every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. But I could see the following. Someone is writing a book and is kind of stuck, so they listen to this tape. Then they think oh yeah, I could try this, or I should do that. Then they would go back to their writing. I see it as a jog for writers.

A few thoughts from the lecture:

Alfred Hitchcock quote: Drama is life with the dull parts left out.

The strength of your villain is the strength of your story. The bad guy is ruthless to get what he wants, even if it is just the corner office.

Every chapter needs a climax (disaster, crisis). Authors should stretch out the climax scenes. A disaster could be winning the lottery. Disasters don’t have to be bad.

The main character wants something. It could be relief from a boss, change in climate, revenge...

A story is a record of how somebody deals with danger.

Books on the craft of writing:
I purchased and started reading Swain’s book “Techniques of the Selling Writer” published in 1965. I couldn’t get into it. It reads like an encyclopedia. But for some, that could be good.

I loved the following two books that I think would be useful to all fiction writers. “Stein on Writing” by Sol Stein and “On Writing” by Stephen King.

Genre: nonfiction, how to write.

Lovely seminar by Dwight

Love Mr Swain presentations on writing. Wish could find more seminars by him on audible.

Best writing advice ever

Dwight Swain's instruction on scene and sequel is the worth the price of admission, and more. OF course, this book has much more going for it than that. I've read and listened to a lot of books on writing. Dwight Swain remains one of my favourite instructors. I just wish they would produce an audiobook version of his book, "Techniques of the Selling Writer." Although I love this audiobook by Dwight Swain and know that there isn't a narrator who would be such a pleasure to listen to, I would still love to have his classic on audio.

Pretty solid advice

Swain has the credentials to know what he's talking about here. These are recordings of a series of lectures at a writers conference, I presume. They suffer from age a bit, the fact that he seems to refer to slides we the listener can't see, and rather than discussing general concepts, sometimes forces definitions that don't always work. Nevertheless, he does know what he's talking about and will no doubt job your memory as a writer to strengthen your characters, tighten the action, and revise ruthlessly.