The author, vice president of the Poynter Institute School of Journalism, wants you to understand that a tool isn’t the same thing as a rule. A tool is something designed to help you, not constrict you. The 50 tools discussed here take writers through the process of storytelling in prose, from the basic (construct a sentence with a subject and a verb) to the advanced (make your characters archetypes, not stereotypes).

Many of Clark’s rules are technical, having to do with such matters as punctuation and tense, but some of them are more thematically oriented (for example, discussions of the proper uses of foreshadowing and suspense). Use the tools when you like, the author says, and throw them away when it suits you. Just know what it is you’re throwing away and why. This is a useful tool for writers at all levels of experience, and it’s entertainingly written, with plenty of helpful examples. David Pitt