Murder Your Darlings

And Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser

By: Roy Peter Clark

Narrated by: Jefferson Mays

Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's Summary

From one of America's most influential teachers, a collection of the best writing advice distilled from 50 language books - from Aristotle to Strunk and White.

With so many excellent writing guides lining bookstore shelves, it can be hard to know where to look for the best advice. Should you go with Natalie Goldberg or Anne Lamott? Maybe William Zinsser or Stephen King would be more appropriate. Then again, what about the classics - Strunk and White, or even Aristotle himself? 

Thankfully, your search is over. In Murder Your Darlings, Roy Peter Clark, who has been a beloved and revered writing teacher to children and Pulitzer Prize winners alike for more than 30 years, has compiled a remarkable collection of more than 100 of the best writing tips from 50 of the best writing books of all time. 

With a chapter devoted to each key strategy, Clark expands and contextualizes the original author's suggestions and offers anecdotes about how each one helped him or other writers sharpen their skills. An invaluable resource for writers of all kinds, Murder Your Darlings is an inspiring and edifying ode to the craft of writing.

©2020 Roy Peter Clark (P)2020 Little, Brown Spark

Critic Reviews

"What emerges is an all-encompassing guide to a life spent with words...Reading Clark is like sitting in on a conversational master class. Writer-readers will clamor for more." (Courtney Eathorne, Booklist)

"A party-popper of inspiration." (Mignon Fogarty, author of Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing)

"This book is magic. Open any page of Murder Your Darlings and dive in. You'll quickly find yourself pulled into Roy Peter Clark's folksy and gentle voice, and his distillation of the wisdom of more than 50 writing books. Through this appreciation, he opens the door to writing books ancient and modern, and to scores of inspiring strategies and tools. He zeroes in on the craft, but also the soul of writing - our voice and identity as writers, as well as our mission and purpose. Along the way, 'America's Writing Coach' encourages us with his greatest lesson - that we can all get better, every day. I am in love with Murder Your Darlings. This is the book I want to give to every writer." (Diana K. Sugg, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, writing coach, and enterprise editor at The Baltimore Sun)

Surprisingly engaging

How interesting can a book about writing techniques be? Not interesting at all to non-writers, I suspect. How about a book about books about writing? Ultimate nerd material, I would imagine. And kow about listening to a book about books about writing in audio format? Insanity, maybe?
For the those not interested in writing this is tbe case here. There is probably nothing here for them.
However, for those of us interested in the craft, this is a small treasure. Roy Peter Clark’s devotion to the art of writing well, and his reverence for those who shared their secrets about how to it is evident in every chapter here. It’s inspiring and well worth a listen.

Loved This SO Much.!

_Murder Your Darlings_ is one of the newest additions to the Writing Life. Filled with fantastic information and quotes from dozens of writers throughout history, I've never read anything so comprehensive... and I have read a LOT of writing books; it is my favorite tactic towards procrastination of my own writing.

This addressed the other writers' foibles and even evils, but embraced the great information they imparted. As many have said, great art has been created from the most abhorrent people who ever lived.

That Clark was able to recount so many incredible writers and their most profound thoughts and advice is a tribute to his book collection and power of retention. He said he still had 100 books to go through and I really hope he will do a _Murder Your Darlings 2_.

If you are an aspiring writer or a writer of bestsellers, I believe all of us can find great information in this book.

pretentious and political

I felt like I was listening to the writing coach for MSNBC. The biases are so blatant, the subtext so smarmy, I couldn’t wait to finish it to see if I could salvage any value from it.

Much More Than I Expected

A longtime student of writing books who writes writing books delivers the best of writing advice from the past 3,000 years. Exceptionally well researched with a lively delivery, a perfect blend of erudition, humor, and useful information.

skippable

I was aware of Charles Johnson and had read his book on writing as well as Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott before Roy Peter Clark decided to write a book about writing books. it's almost a book about writing but not quite. you can read this to help you as a writer but it's not really worth your time.

Excellent Review ofWriting Books

Provides an excellent review of writing books. Next step is to pick from his list in areas where you need help and read them.
The author has a rye sense of humor that makes an interesting read.

Fascinating and useful

A culling of wisdoms about composition from about 200 years of working writers thinking about and writing on the subject.

N.B. I've been stumped on a book review for several weeks, but after two hours listening to this book, sentences for a "zero draft" started free-associating out of my unconscious.

Very well performed!

Good sourcebook for writing technique

Excellent book on writing. My only complaint is that, at times I wish I had the print version instead of the audio book.

fantastic work

fantastic work for which it is easy to follow up because he gives so many references where you can find fantastic instructions and writing. his overview of these works does not show all of the unique insights that he provides which are fantastic. I am so glad I picked this one up. (this was all voice to text and Amazon does not seem to capitalize in this app.)