Books like The modes of modern writing by David Lodge

On Writing blends Stephen King’s memoir with practical guidance, offering a personal look at his path to success and essential lessons for aspiring writers.

Francine Prose shows how studying great writers—from Dostoyevsky to Joyce—reveals the craft of storytelling, urging readers to analyze language and technique in order to improve their own writing.

Terry Eagleton’s literary criticism survey offers a clear, engaging introduction to the major movements in 20th‑century literary studies.

A thoughtful meditation on Annie Dillard’s creative process, woven from anecdotes and vignettes that illuminate her distinctive prose style.

A charismatic cognitive science director in a university college falls between his stable marriage and a widowed novelist, leading to revelations about the limits of understanding others.

Explains the principles and techniques of good writing, and discusses the seven basic technical matters that beginning writers must constantly bear in mind.

"The articles with which David Lodge entertained and enlightened readers of the Independent on Sunday and The Washington Post are now revised, expanded and collected together in book form. The art of fiction is considered under a wide range of headings, such as the Intrusive Author, Suspense, the Epistolary Novel, Time-shift, Magical Realism and Symbolism, and each topic is illustrated by a passage or two taken from classic or modern fiction. Drawing on writers as diverse as Henry James and Martin Amis, Jane Austen and Fay Weldon and Henry Fielding and James Joyce, David Lodge makes accessible to the general reader the richness and variety of British and American fiction. Technical terms, such as Interior Monologue, Metafiction, Intertextuality and the Unreliable Narrator, are lucidly explained and their application demonstrated. Bringing to criticism the verve and humour of his own novels, David Lodge has provided essential reading for students of literature, aspirant writers, and anyone who wishes to understand how literature works."--Publisher's website.