Egri's treatise The Art of Dramatic Writing was first published in 1946 and remains today one of the best creative writing "how to" books ever written. It is a concise guide to all forms of creative writing, from premise to characters to plot, with special attention to the heart of any drama which are its characters and their inner natures and inter-relationships that move a story and give it life. Few books attempt to analyze play-construction as well as this book, and its principles and methods are so valid that they apply equally well to the short story, novel, and screenplay.

The Story Behind THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCEIf you've read his books THE WAR OF ART and TURNING PRO, you know that for thirty years Steven Pressfield (GATES OF FIRE, THE AFGHAN CAMPAIGN etc.) wrote spec novel after spec novel before any publisher took him seriously. How did he finally break through?Ignoring just about every rule of commercial book publishing, Pressfield's "first" novel not only became a major bestseller (over 250,000 copies sold), it was adapted into a feature film directed by Robert Redford and starring Matt Damon, Will Smith, and Charlize Theron.Where did he get the idea?What magical something did THE LEGEND OF BAGGER VANCE have that his previous manuscripts lacked?Why did Pressfield decide to write a novel when he already had a well established screenwriting career?How does writing a publishable novel really work?Taking a page from John Steinbeck's classic JOURNAL OF A NOVEL, Steven Pressfield offers answers for these and scores of other practical writing questions in THE AUTHENTIC SWING.

In this long-awaited sequel to her bestselling books Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind , Natalie Goldberg, one of the most sought-after writing teachers of our time, takes us to the next step in the writing process. You’ve filled your notebooks, done your writing practice, discovered your original voice. Now what? How do you turn this raw material into finished stories, essays, poems, novels, memoirs? Drawing on her own experience as a writer and a student of Zen, Natalie shows you how to create a field big enough to allow your “wild mind” to wander — and then gently direct its tremendous energy into whatever you want to write. Here, too, is invaluable advice on how to overcome writer’s block, how to deal with the fear of criticism and rejection, how to get the most from working with an editor, and how to learn from reading accomplished authors. With humor and compassion, Goldberg recounts her own mistakes on the way to publication — and how you can avoid the most common pitfalls of the beginning writer. Through it all there is a deep celebration of writing itself — not just as the means to an end, but as a path to living a deeper, more fully alive life.