Journalist and writing instructor Roy Peter Clark makes it clear from the beginning that Murder Your Darlings and Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser is not a list of the best writing guides. Instead Clark, himself the author of several respected books on writing, including Writing Tools and How to Write Short, shares some of his favorite writing books and what he learned from them.
Clark engages in discussion with each author he introduces, sometimes carrying that discussion across authors or even beyond the subject of writing. (For example, an examination of Dorothea Brande's fascist leanings leads Clark to a rich discussion of good work by bad people.) He begins with On the Art of Writing by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, the source of the often misquoted and misattributed injunction to "murder your darlings"--putting that advice in its original and less draconian context. He distinguishes between books about writing craft and books about living the life of a writer--while pointing out that many of the best books straddle the two categories. Clark distills one or two pieces of advice from each work he considers--sometimes technical, sometimes inspirational. He ends with a piece of advice distilled from all 50 works together: "writers use everything."
Murder Your Darlings is an opinionated, lively and occasionally critical discussion of books that have made Clark want to write and why such books matter. Be warned: readers may be inspired to add new books to their writing bookshelves, or to re-read ones they already own. --Pamela Toler, blogging at History in the Margins