Roy Peter Clark’s new book, Help! for Writers: 210 Solutions to the Problems Every Writer Faces, offers practical advice & writing tips based on 3 decades of teaching writing.

Help! for Writers joins his previous books, The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English and Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, as “must read” resources reflecting the growing of writing as an everyday resource for business success.

Empathy

Roy Peter Clark, a recent Published & Profitable interview guest, writes with great empathy for his readers.

Each of the chapter titles resonates with the frustrations often experienced and voiced by both new and experienced writers.

Table of Contents

The conversational tone of the chapter titles continues in each of the book’s 21 chapters.

You can study Help!’s idea organization and table of contents by downloading and printable PDF of the mind map I created of its table of contents.

Writing process

Each of the 21 chapters appears within one of the 7 steps Roy Peter Clark uses to describe a writing process that works for all types of writing–not just books.

Each step contains 3 chapters.

Each of the 21 chapters contain 10 ideas. This, of course, leads to the 210 solutions promised in the title.

Solution writing

The more I read, and reread, Help! for Writers, the more I like it. I’m especially impressed by the quality of the solutions–both the ideas and the way that they’re presented.

Each of the 10 solutions in each chapter are concisely described, but engagingly presented, usually with a first-personal description of how he applies the solution. In other cases, he includes references or anecdotes about other writers.

I also appreciate Roy Peter Clark’s unabashed enthusiasm for low-tech solutions, like index cards and file folders, combined with his awareness of the latest high-tech computer and online options.

About the mind map

I created the downloadable mind map on an Apple iPad using an app called Mindo.

Roy Peter Clark’s Help! for Writers is for you, regardless whether you’re interested in avoiding, or solving, the problems every writer faces, or you’re just interested in studying how a writing teacher with over 30 years of experience solves writing problems and writes a highly readable and informative book. If you’ve read Help!, or one of Roy Peter Clark’s earlier books, please share your impressions,as comments, below.