
Writing Tools (10th Anniversary Edition)
55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer
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Narrated by:
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Neil Kaplan
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By:
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Roy Peter Clark
About this listen
A special 10th-anniversary edition of Roy Peter Clark's best-selling guide to writing, featuring five bonus tools.
Ten years ago, Roy Peter Clark, America's most influential writing teacher, whittled down almost 30 years of experience in journalism, writing, and teaching into a series of 50 short essays on different aspects of writing. In the past decade, Writing Tools has become a classic guidebook for novices and experts alike and remains one of the best loved books on writing available.
Organized into four sections, "Nuts and Bolts", "Special Effects", "Blueprints for Stories", and "Useful Habits", Writing Tools is infused with more than 200 examples from journalism and literature. This new edition includes five brand-new, never-before-shared tools.
Accessible, entertaining, inspiring, and, above all, useful for every type of writer, from high school student to novelist, Writing Tools is an essential book.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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Critic reviews
"Roy Peter Clark knows more about writing than anybody I know who is not currently dead." (Dave Barry, author of Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far))
"Clark is a joyful, brilliant teacher who unlocks the mysteries of literary flow. This book is one to keep near the keyboard." (Anne Hull, national reporter for the Washington Post)
"Roy is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of writing teachers.... Like its author, Writing Tools is brilliant, openhearted, and indispensable; it's easily one of the best books ever published about our craft." (Thomas French, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Zoo Story)
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- Unabridged
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The Elements of Style has long been a valued and beloved resource for all writers. Hailed for its directness and clever insight, this unorthodox textbook was born from a professor's love for the written word and perfected years later by one of his students: famed author E. B. White. Ever since its first publication in 1959, writers have turned to this book for its wise and accessible advice.
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Required Reading
- By T. C. Pile on 12-07-08
By: William Strunk Jr., and others
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The Characters of Creation
- The Men, Women, Creatures, and Serpent Present at the Beginning of the World
- By: Daniel Darling
- Narrated by: Tim Mullins
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Most Christians are familiar with the opening words of Genesis: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” But push beyond those iconic words, and sometimes the details get a little hazy. And strange. God walked around in a garden? Eve was made from Adam’s rib? A talking serpent? And what the in the world were the “Nephilim”? In The Characters of Creation, Daniel Darling re-introduces listeners to the story they thought they knew.
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Good summary of the Genesis
- By Roseclan on 04-20-25
By: Daniel Darling
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How to Write Short
- Word Craft for Fast Times
- By: Roy Peter Clark
- Narrated by: Roy Peter Clark
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In How to Write Short , Roy Peter Clark turns his attention to the art of painting a thousand pictures with just a few words. Short forms of writing have always existed - from ship logs and telegrams to prayers and haikus. But in this ever-changing Internet age, short-form writing has become an essential skill. Clark covers how to write effective and powerful titles, headlines, essays, sales pitches, Tweets, letters, and even self-descriptions for online dating services.
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Ironically long
- By Amazon Customer on 03-14-16
By: Roy Peter Clark
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Fascinate, Revised and Updated
- How to Make Your Brand Impossible to Resist
- By: Sally Hogshead
- Narrated by: Sally Hogshead
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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A newly revised and updated edition of the influential guide that explores one of the most powerful ways to attract attention and influence behavior - fascination - and how businesses, products, and ideas can become irresistible to consumers. In an oversaturated culture defined by limited time and focus, how do we draw attention to our messages, our ideas, and our products when we have only seconds to compete?
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Motivational, but lacks substance!
- By Melanie Iannaggi on 09-15-17
By: Sally Hogshead
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Adventures in the Screen Trade
- By: William Goldman
- Narrated by: Kiff VandenHeuvel
- Length: 13 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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No one knows the writer's Hollywood more intimately than William Goldman. Two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter and the best-selling author of Marathon Man, Tinsel, Boys and Girls Together, and other novels, Goldman now takes you into Hollywood's inner sanctums...on and behind the scenes for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, and other films...into the plush offices of Hollywood producers...into the working lives of acting greats such as Redford, Olivier, Newman, and Hoffman...and more.
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Classic in the field stands up
- By Jenny Jenkins on 01-01-24
By: William Goldman
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A History of the Human Brain
- From the Sea Sponge to CRISPR, How Our Brain Evolved
- By: Bret Stetka
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Just over 125,000 years ago, humanity was going extinct until a dramatic shift occurred—Homo sapiens started tracking the tides in order to eat the nearby oysters. Before long, they’d pulled themselves back from the brink of extinction. The human brain, and its evolutionary journey, is unlike anything else in history. In A History of the Human Brain, Bret Stetka takes listeners through that far-reaching journey. He also tackles the question of where the brain will take us next, exploring the burgeoning concepts of epigenetics and new technologies like CRISPR.
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Fascinating survey of the evolution of the human brain
- By Cosmos on 03-30-21
By: Bret Stetka
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Writing for Impact
- 8 Secrets from Science That Will Fire Up Your Readers’ Brains
- By: Bill Birchard
- Narrated by: Bill Birchard
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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What good will it do to skillfully craft a written argument if you lose your audience? Simple emails, formal reports, blogs, presentations, articles—they need punch to gain influence. Clear structure and logic alone won’t do. To engage readers, you need to make mentally stimulating choices in language—choices that electrify your readers’ mental hotspots. Veteran journalist Bill Birchard reveals the secret of making that happen. He blends the findings from a global cadre of psychologists and neuroscientists with lessons from his long, successful career as a professional writer.
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a very scientific look of what works
- By Datta Groover on 03-25-25
By: Bill Birchard
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Structuring Your Novel
- Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story
- By: K. M. Weiland
- Narrated by: Sonja Field
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Why do some stories work and others don't? The answer is structure. In this IPPY and NIEA Award-winning guide from the author of the bestselling Outlining Your Novel, you will discover the universal underpinnings that guarantee powerful plot and character arcs. An understanding of proper story and scene structure will help you to not only perfectly time your story's major events, but will also provide you with an unerring standard to use in evaluating your novel's pacing and progression.
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An Outstanding Resource for Writers
- By Richard Phillips (Bestselling Author of The Rho Agenda) on 02-01-15
By: K. M. Weiland
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The Power of Awareness
- And Other Secrets from the World's Foremost Spies, Detectives, and Special Operators on How to Stay Safe and Save Your Life
- By: Dan Schilling
- Narrated by: Dan Schilling
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In his empowering book, Dan Schilling shares how to identify and avoid threats using situational awareness and intuition just like the pros. Told with wit and wisdom, this compelling guide uses harrowing stories from Dan's special operations career and those of other experts to outline six easily implemented rules you can apply anywhere to improve your personal safety.
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Good information but a miss on delivery possibly
- By HonestBuyer on 04-30-23
By: Dan Schilling
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HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself (With Bonus Article "How Will You Measure Your Life?" by Clayton M. Christensen)
- HBR's 10 Must Reads Series
- By: Harvard Business Review, Peter F. Drucker, Clayton M. Christensen, and others
- Narrated by: Chris Kayser
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself will inspire you to: stay engaged throughout your fifty-plus-year work life; tap into your deepest values; solicit candid feedback; replenish physical and mental energy; balance work, home, community, and self; spread positive energy throughout your organization; rebound from tough times; decrease distractibility and frenzy; and delegate and develop employees' initiative.
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Easy read, but material is shallow
- By Amazon Customer on 09-22-24
By: Harvard Business Review, and others
Been looking for a written treasure?
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Amazing Narration
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Refreshing
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This book helped me kickstart my own book!
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Great book ruined by narrator
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A must read for all writers!
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Clear and comprehensive
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Distracting narration
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Great lecture from a cartoon
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