Murder Your Darlings
And Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser
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Narrated by:
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Jefferson Mays
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By:
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Roy Peter Clark
About this listen
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 SparkListeners also enjoyed...
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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)
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Ayn Rand discusses how a writer combines abstract ideas with concrete action and description to achieve a unity of theme, plot, characterization, and style, the four essential elements of fiction. Here, too, are Rand's illuminating analyses of passages from famous writers, rewrites of scenes from her own works, and fascinating rules for building dramatic plots and characters with depth.
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Get Stein on Writing
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By: Ayn Rand
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The Untold Story of the Talking Book
- By: Matthew Rubery
- Narrated by: Jim Denison
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
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Histories of the book often move straight from the codex to the digital screen. Left out of that familiar account is nearly 150 years of audio recordings. Recounting the fascinating history of audio-recorded literature, Matthew Rubery traces the path of innovation from Edison's recitation of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" for his tinfoil phonograph in 1877 to the first novel-length talking books made for blinded World War I veterans to today's billion-dollar audiobook industry.
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A Historical Review of Audiobooks
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By: Matthew Rubery
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At the Existentialist Café
- Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails
- By: Sarah Bakewell
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
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Paris, 1933: Three contemporaries meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are the young Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and longtime friend Raymond Aron, a fellow philosopher who raves to them about a new conceptual framework from Berlin called phenomenology. "You see," he says, "if you are a phenomenologist, you can talk about this cocktail and make philosophy out of it!"
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Consistent look at incoherent philosophy
- By Gary on 06-19-16
By: Sarah Bakewell
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Language Intelligence
- Lessons on Persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
- By: Joseph J. Romm
- Narrated by: Drew Birdseye
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Joseph Romm, one of Rolling Stone magazine’s top "100 Agents of Change", has focused his talents on helping us all to increase our language intelligence and to better understand the art of persuasion. Romm demonstrates that you don't have to be an expert to vastly improve your ability to communicate. He has pulled together the secrets of the greatest communicators in history to show how you can apply these tools to your writing, speaking, blogging - even your Tweeting.
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Liberal Propaganda
- By Craig on 02-05-13
By: Joseph J. Romm
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Poetry in Person
- Twenty-five Years of Conversation with America's Poets
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- Narrated by: Alexander Neubauer
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This first audio edition of Poetry in Person: 25 Years of Conversation with America’s Poets (Knopf, 2010), invites listeners into an intimate classroom with eight acclaimed poets. Full of compelling, in-depth conversation about manuscripts and drafts by the poets themselves, plus readings of the finished poems, these historic recordings offer one of the most detailed portraits ever produced of how poems are actually made.
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Fascinating
- By d on 08-28-16
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The Stephen King Companion
- Four Decades of Fear from the Master of Horror
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- Narrated by: Fleet Cooper, Claire Christie
- Length: 24 hrs and 21 mins
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The Stephen King Companion is an authoritative look at horror author King's personal life and professional career, from Carrie to The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. King expert George Beahm, who has published extensively about Maine's main author, is your seasoned guide to the imaginative world of Stephen King, covering his varied and prodigious output: juvenalia, short fiction, limited edition books, best-selling novels, and film adaptations.
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A Kingopedia: Books, Movies, Bio and Art
- By tru britty on 02-28-16
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How Fiction Works
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- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
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Ranging widely from Homer to David Foster Wallace, from What Maisie Knew to Make Way for Ducklings, Wood takes the reader through the basic elements of the art, step by step. He sums up two decades of insight with wit and concision, resulting in nothing less than a philosophy of the novel, which has won critical acclaim nationwide, from the San Francisco Chronicle to the New York Times Book Review.
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Educational!
- By Don on 05-04-09
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A Life Observed
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- By: Devin Brown
- Narrated by: Jon Gauger
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
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A Life Observed tells the inspiring story of Lewis' spiritual journey from cynical atheist to joyous Christian. Drawing on Lewis' autobiographical works, books by those who knew him personally, and his apologetic and fictional writing, this spiritual biography brings the beloved author’s story to life while shedding light on his best-known works.
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A beautifully written remembrance
- By Rob on 02-06-18
By: Devin Brown
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The Art of Nonfiction
- By: Ayn Rand
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
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Rand takes listeners step by step through the writing process, providing insightful observations and invaluable techniques along the way. She discusses the psychological aspects of writing and the roles played by the conscious and subconscious mind. She talks about articles and books, explaining how to select a subject and theme, how to identify your audience, and how to write the first draft.
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Great Content, but the narrator is annoying
- By Ms on 01-26-09
By: Ayn Rand
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The Enchanted Hour
- The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in the Age of Distraction
- By: Meghan Cox Gurdon
- Narrated by: Meghan Cox Gurdon
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
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A Wall Street Journal writer’s conversation-changing look at how reading aloud makes adults and children smarter, happier, healthier, more successful, and more closely attached, even as technology pulls in the other direction.
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advice to take to heart
- By Brian on 04-30-20
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Making History
- The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past
- By: Richard Cohen
- Narrated by: Richard Cohen
- Length: 26 hrs and 8 mins
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There are many stories we can spin about previous ages, but which accounts get told? And by whom? Is there even such a thing as “objective” history? In this “witty, wise, and elegant” (The Spectator), book, Richard Cohen reveals how professional historians and other equally significant witnesses, such as the writers of the Bible, novelists, and political propagandists, influence what becomes the accepted record. Cohen argues, for example, that some historians are practitioners of “Bad History” and twist reality to glorify themselves or their country.
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Missing 20 pages from book
- By Rick, Austin on 04-23-22
By: Richard Cohen
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As a fantasy writer, this book was not for me.
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On Writing Well: Audio Collection
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This is not the described book.
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What listeners say about Murder Your Darlings
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Stryker
- 01-17-24
I have been reading sense I could,
I have been reading sense I could, from comic books , magazines, and then books, and I always wondered how this people do it, how do they have this stories in their heads, I get to visit them. Great book thank you
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- John Rothermel
- 11-14-21
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!
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- Mr D
- 02-19-23
Well done.
Not sure why there would be any negative reviews on this book. I found it interesting, enlightening, and thought provoking. In my mind, these are all the things you should reflect on, and have in your arsenal, as you objectively look at your own writing.
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- KellysHero718
- 10-14-21
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.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Patrick N
- 02-16-23
So good
I’ve listened to this gem twice, and will surely be back many more times. Mr. Clark has written something important here; something that will endure and live on.
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- MarkR
- 09-25-21
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.)
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1 person found this helpful
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- Thomas A. Siewert
- 10-12-21
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.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Brian Welch
- 01-23-23
Excellent
Extremely helpful and insightful guide to writing effectively. Tips abound in this gold mine of information, covering both fiction and non-fiction. Examples and explanations are top notch. Narration is engaging and clear. I will use much of what I leaned in this audiobook. I would recommend it to anyone who writes, no matter their experience level.
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- Navelgazing Writer
- 06-22-21
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.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Kenneth L. Wadlin
- 01-23-22
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.
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