The Art and Craft of Feature Writing: Based on The Wall Street Journal Guide

This is a terrific book! Buy it! You'll use it and enjoy it.

This is a tell & show book. First, Blundell tells you what is important and why. Then he supports each assertion with an example in the form of a well written piece. The examples alone are worth reading.

This the best book I've ever read about writing.

Good instruction here, with lengthy writing examples well worth analysis. I really wish he hadn't included some of his own stuff as exemplary, though. His writing contains summit moments, and he earned his place on the staff of a famed paper, but I don't believe Blundell is among the top hundred or so feature writers of the past half century. Had his editor found a tactful way to make a bit less of Blundell himself, this could have been a great work, not merely a good work. Still, if you can acquire it for under five bucks, add it to your work shelf.

Daniel Elton Harmon
www.danieleltonharmon.com

This book is a true gem.
Set aside the absolutely helpful thoughts on generating ideas, structure, and the nexus of reporting and writing (all of which are invaluable).
The idea that there is a triad of elements upon which all good feature stories are based is an extraordinarily useful one.
Base a story on action, quotation and narration (i.e. the basic information necessary to the story) and go from one element to the next and so on, building the story block by block, says the author.
This concept alone is the best working guide for a writer on a nuts and bolts level, bar none.

This book shows the nuts and bolts about good journalism: writing and interviewing techniques, how to get good story ideas, etc. It has a great deal of examples too. Every journalist should read it at least once. The best thing would be to revisit it every two or three years.

Cast a cold eye on life on death; horsemen pass by. That's an epitaph. Was it Yeats, or just one he suggested in a poem? How does it apply to Blundell's book? Just this: Here is the one and only worthwhile book ever written for writers. I know, because I that's how I earn my living. Blundell is the best bar none. Throw all the others out. Unless, of course you're another wound-licker who thinks he wants to "learn" to write, in which case, horsemen pass by, and bring on the clowns!