Becoming a Writer Dorothea Brande's Becoming A Writer Collection, (Paperback)

There is one way to succeed as a writer - and that starts before you put down a single word.

Imagine what you could accomplish if you knew for a fact that you would succeed at anything you set out to do?

All your books could be perfect - perennial bestsellers from day one.

Of course, that thought that just ran through your head is exactly why they aren't.

Yes, really.

In this book is the single formula that Dorothea Brande discovered for herself. Applying it changed her life from one where she considered herself to be a personal failure into one of being a noted success.

That's what you can become.

The very best writer you can. Because there's no way you can fail at this.

These two books take all of Brande's discoveries and aligns them into a cohesive system that can take you into realms you might only be able to imagine.

Each by themselves have created remarkable success for their readers. Together, it takes even the beginning writer to unimaginable heights.

If you believe and apply what she said here.

You only have to "Act As If it Was Impossible to Fail."

Excerpt:

For most of my adult life I have been engaged in the writing, the editing, or the criticizing of fiction.

I took, and I still take, the writing of fiction seriously.

The importance of novels and short stories in our society is great. Fiction supplies the only philosophy that many readers know; it establishes their ethical, social, and material standards; it confirms them in their prejudices or opens their minds to a wider world.

The influence of any widely read book can hardly be overestimated. If it is sensational, shoddy, or vulgar our lives are the poorer for the cheap ideals which it sets in circulation; if, as so rarely happens, it is a thoroughly good book, honestly conceived and honestly executed, we are all indebted to it.

The movies have not undermined the influence of fiction. On the contrary, they have extended its field, carrying the ideas which are already current among readers to those too young, too impatient, or too uneducated to read.

So I make no apology for writing seriously about the problems of fiction writers. But until two years ago I should have felt apologetic about adding another volume to the writer's working library.

But two years ago I began, myself, to teach a class in fiction writing.

Nothing was further from my mind, on the evening of my first lecture, than adding to the top-heavy literature on the subject. Although I had been considerably disappointed in most of the books I had read and all the classes I had attended, it was not until I joined the ranks of instructors that I realized the true basis of my discontent.

That basis of discontent was that the difficulties of the average student or amateur writer begin long before he has come to the place where he can benefit by technical instruction in story writing.

In the opening lecture, within the first few pages of his book, within a sentence or two of his authors' sympo