Alice LaPlante - "The Making of a Story"

A Norton Guide to creative writing.

Wonderful book with exercises. Too many things to quote here, except; "It's important to understand that there are two aspects to creating truly compelling writing. ... what's needed is both method and madness. The method is what can be learned in an academically rigorous, systematic manner. ... But then there's the madness part - what is more frequently called the inspiration."