Literary theorist Norm Friedman offered incredible new ways to think about and categorize plots. His work can help writers better...

The principles of literary theory help writers tell better stories. Here is a presentation where I discuss key concepts in literary...

Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God is a perfect example of Aristotle's dramatic structure. Here are my notes on how...

Using the famous "5 Stages of Grief" as his model, Editor Shawn Coyne develops a theory of character that helps the writer deliver...

Hemingway on writing and the writing life. Here he is in his own immortal words.

Horace writes a book on craft disguised as a poem. His poem, Ars Poetica, is a classic of literary criticism and became the key text for...

David Mamet discusses the fundamentals of story and gets right down to the most essential, most profound elements of writing forceful...

In Virginia Woolf's essay A Room of One's Own she analyzes classic books written by women and discusses what it means to be a female...

This ancient text on story lays out what aesthetics are and why the writer must rely on them. Here are my notes on Longinus's brilliant...

The great theorist Cleanth Brooks says writers can only step into the universal by going through the narrow door of the particular. Here...

Get down to some serious writing with Francine Prose's advice on craft. Here are notes from her essential book, Reading Like a Writer.

Stephen King says talent is cheaper than table salt: it's hard work that makes the writer. Here are my notes on his classic book, On...

Philip Sidney defends poetry from attacks on its value. Sidney says poetry tamed our wild wits and was the first light-giver to...

In 1668, John Dryden published his work, Essay of Dramatic Poesy, wherein he criticized classical notions of form and put forth a...

Why must art mean something; can't it simply be experienced? In this great, iconoclastic essay, Susan Sontag says interpretation kills...

Writer John Gardner says a story must create a vivid and continuous dream in the reader's mind. Here are my notes on his famous book on...

E. M. Forster wrote a terrific book exploring the elements of fiction. Here are my notes on his classic book on writing, Aspects of the...

How to Write a Damn Good Novel, Part 2 is a great follow-up book on the craft of writing. Here are my notes on this excellent book.

How to Write A Damn Good Novel is a great book on craft. Here are my notes on this classic guide to writing.

Literary critic Wolfgang Iser spent his career trying to understand how we read and interpret what we read. His theory of reading can...

All literary theory begins here. Aristotle's Poetics is perhaps the earliest work on theory and gives one of the best explanations of...

"A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no...

Understanding any art form can give the writer insight into craft and aesthetics. Here are my notes on Michel Foucault's analysis of...

Jorge Louis Borges is one of the giants. Here are my notes on a collection of his essays on craft.

This essay by the Russian Formalist Viktor Shklovsky introduces one of the most important concepts in literary theory: Defamiliarization....

Many novels follow a protagonist along the Hero's Journey. Here are my notes on Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces, a book...