"A widely admired writer and teacher of writing for more than 25 years, Klinkenborg gives a distillation of that experience in an indispensable and distinctive book that will help anyone who wants to write, write better, or have a clearer understanding of what it means to be writing. Klinkenborg believes that most of our received wisdom about how writing works is not only wrong but an obstacle to our ability to write. Here he sets out to help us unlearn...

Rhetoric is among the most ancient academic disciplines, and we all use it every day whether expertly or not. This book is a lively set of lessons on the subject. It is about rhetorical figures: practical ways of applying old and powerful principles--repetition and variety, suspense and relief, concealment and surprise, the creation of expectations and then the satisfaction or frustration of them--to the composition of a simple sentence or a complete...

""'There's nothing in the world more powerful than a good story. Nothing can stop it. Nothing can defeat it.' Thus spake Tyrion in the final episode of Game of Thrones, claiming the throne for Bran the Broken. Many viewers liked neither the choice of king nor its rationale. But the claim that story brings you to world dominance seems by now so banal that it's common wisdom. Narrative seems to have become accepted as the one and only form of knowledge...

A branding consultant explains how to craft miniature messages such as headlines, titles, sound bites, brand names, domain names, and slogans that grab attention, communicate effectively, and stick in the mind, focusing each chapter on a particular tool.

"Draft No. 4 is a master class on the writer's craft. In a series of playful, expertly wrought essays, John McPhee shares insights he has gathered over his career and has refined while teaching at Princeton University, where he has nurtured some of the most esteemed writers of recent decades. McPhee offers definitive guidance in the decisions regarding arrangement, diction, and tone that shape nonfiction pieces, and he presents extracts from his work,...