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Ursula K. Le Guin
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Steering The Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story Paperback – September 1, 2015

by Ursula K. Le Guin (Author)
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From the celebrated Ursula K. Le Guin, "a writer of enormous intelligence and wit, a master storyteller" (Boston Globe), the revised and updated edition of her classic guide to the essentials of a writer's craft.

Completely revised and rewritten to address modern challenges and opportunities, this handbook is a short, deceptively simple guide to the craft of writing.

Le Guin lays out ten chapters that address the most fundamental components of narrative, from the sound of language to sentence construction to point of view. Each chapter combines illustrative examples from the global canon with Le Guin’s own witty commentary and an exercise that the writer can do solo or in a group. She also offers a comprehensive guide to working in writing groups, both actual and online.

Masterly and concise, Steering the Craft deserves a place on every writer's shelf.
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  1. Print length
    160 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harper Perennial
  4. Publication date
    September 1, 2015
  5. Dimensions
    5.31 x 0.4 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0544611616
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0544611610
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"A must-read for intermediate and advanced writers of fiction and memoir." —Library Journal, STARRED  "A succinct, clear, and encouraging companion for aspiring writers." —Kirkus Reviews "It would be churlish to deny the benefits of this thoughtful, concise volume...In essence, Le Guin reveals the art of craft and the craft of art...this book is a star by which to set one's course." —Publishers Weekly, STARRED “There is no better spirit in all of American letters than that of Ursula Le Guin.” — Slate   “Le Guin is a writer of enormous intelligence and wit, a master storyteller with the humor and force of a Twain. She creates stories for everyone from New Yorker literati to the hardest audience, children. She remakes every genre she uses.” — Boston Globe —

From the Back Cover

“There is no better spirit in all of American letters than that of Ursula Le Guin.” — Slate
 
“Le Guin is a writer of enormous intelligence and wit, a master storyteller with the humor and force of a Twain. She creates stories for everyone from New Yorker literati to the hardest audience, children. She remakes every genre she uses.” — Boston Globe
 
A modernized, new edition of an essential guide to the writing craft, presented by a brilliant practitioner of the art
 
Completely revised and rewritten to address the challenges and opportunities of the modern era, this handbook is a short, deceptively simple guide to the craft of writing. The ten chapters shed light on the most fundamental components of narrative, from the sound of language to sentence construction to point of view. Each chapter combines illustrative examples from the global canon with Ursula Le Guin’s own witty commentary and an exercise that the writer can do solo or in a group. Le Guin also offers a comprehensive guide to working in writing groups, both actual and online.

Masterly and concise, Steering the Craft deserves a place on every writer’s shelf.
 
Over the course of her career, Ursula K. Le Guin has published more than sixty books of fiction, fantasy, children’s literature, poetry, drama, criticism, and translation. She is the winner of many awards, including the PEN/Malamud Award and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

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Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin

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Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (US /ˈɜːrsələ ˈkroʊbər ləˈɡwɪn/; born October 21, 1929) is an American author of novels, children's books, and short stories, mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. She has also written poetry and essays. First published in the 1960s, her work has often depicted futuristic or imaginary alternative worlds in politics, the natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality and ethnography.

She influenced such Booker Prize winners and other writers as Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell – and notable science fiction and fantasy writers including Neil Gaiman and Iain Banks. She has won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, each more than once. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Le Guin has resided in Portland, Oregon since 1959.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
891 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find this writing guide excellent, packed with great advice, and suitable for writers at any stage. The book features exercises that are very useful, with one customer noting each segment is followed by exercises, while another mentions the wacky exercises to stimulate creativity. Customers appreciate its short length, grammar guidance, and humor, with one noting it's not intimidatingly long.

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Writing adviceAdviceReadabilityExercise contentCreativityLengthGrammarHumor
53 customers mention "Writing advice"50 positive3 negative

Customers find this writing guide excellent and deeply insightful, particularly noting that it is aimed at experienced writers and includes exercises for writing groups to work through.

"Best book on writing I've found - if you do the exercises, that is." Read more

"Le Guin is a great writer and there's much to admire about this book, but it's too much like a textbook for my liking...." Read more

"Excellent resource for all writers. I have been writing for decades and still found LeGuin's words to be of value...." Read more

"Short, sweet, and practical writing advice with exercises to do on your own or in a group." Read more

39 customers mention "Advice"35 positive4 negative

Customers find the book informative and packed with great advice, with one customer noting it includes copious examples of the various concepts discussed.

"...Insightful, expertly written, and ful of great examples and exercises for single writers or critique groups, this book was a joy to read and work..." Read more

"A wonderfully deep, insightful, and also practical guide to the craft of writing by one of the world's best authors...." Read more

"Helpful reminders of good writing, illustrated with short examples by a flock of other writers, capped by mentions of still further exemplar works;..." Read more

"Excellent book for clear inspiring examples, good practical advice and exercises that are challenging, rather than run of the mill...." Read more

32 customers mention "Readability"29 positive3 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and engaging, particularly noting it is suitable for writers at any stage.

"Excellent book for clear inspiring examples, good practical advice and exercises that are challenging, rather than run of the mill...." Read more

"...stars because there is enough good stuff in there to make it well worth reading." Read more

"This is an excellent book, though if you are a writer and have been seeking out guidance for improvement there's a lot here you have heard before...." Read more

"...A must read for the aspiring novelist--wish I had read it sooner." Read more

19 customers mention "Exercise content"18 positive1 negative

Customers appreciate the exercises in the book, finding them useful and thought-provoking, with one customer noting that each segment is followed by them.

"Le Guin's voice is bracing and demanding. Her exercises will be very useful when I teach my next class on writing." Read more

"This little volume is packed with great advice and thought-provoking exercises. I wish I'd found this year's ago...." Read more

"Ursula K. Leguin packs this book with valuable information and useful exercises at the end of every chapter. It's a pleasure to read." Read more

"Le Guin's exercises are very helpful...." Read more

11 customers mention "Creativity"11 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the creativity exercises in the book, with some mentioning they are worthwhile for writers to work through, and one noting they are wacky and stimulating.

"Genius, of course. It's Ursula." Read more

"...that writers need to hone their craft and gives lots of exercises for writers to practice what she talks about. My students love it and I do, too." Read more

"...Insightful, expertly written, and ful of great examples and exercises for single writers or critique groups, this book was a joy to read and work..." Read more

"This is an excellent book and has exercises that are worthwhile for writers to work through, so they are more aware of some of the choices to be..." Read more

11 customers mention "Length"8 positive3 negative

Customers appreciate the book's concise length, with one noting it's not hundreds of intimidating pages long, and another mentioning it serves well as a workbook.

"Wonderful for aspiring story writers of all ages. Short and to the point. Useful for me as an English teacher and as a writer." Read more

"I enjoyed the short chapters that allowed me to focus on one writing topic/part/skill at a time, the spot-on writing exercises, and the examples..." Read more

"...These are short (generally a paragraph to a page), and less stories than building blocks of scenes...." Read more

"...It's a relatively short book, but it covers a lot of topics and has useful writing exercises in each chapter...." Read more

7 customers mention "Grammar"7 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's grammar and punctuation guidance, with one customer noting it serves as a concise guide for beginning writers.

"This is a clear, concise, and absolutely splendid book on the craft of writing, with chapters on sound, punctuation and grammar, sentence length and..." Read more

"...She talks about grammar only to explain how not to be afraid of the semicolon or comas...." Read more

"...Like scales to a pianist these exercises keep the practitioner limber in skill and language; they could easily become part of a routine writing..." Read more

"...The book is good at what it does, which is lay out firm guidelines for grammar, context, tenses etc...." Read more

7 customers mention "Humor"6 positive1 negative

Customers find the book humorous, with one mentioning it's fun to read about writing.

"Le Guin is funny, helpful and spot-on with her writing advice." Read more

"...I haven't yet done the writing exercises but they look like a lot of fun. This one's a keeper." Read more

"...The exercises are excellent, explanations clear and humble, no bla bla or haughtiness. Touches all important elements of fiction narrative...." Read more

"Fun to read about writing..." Read more

It's Ursula Le Guin on writing. You read it.
5 out of 5 stars
It's Ursula Le Guin on writing. You read it.
Don't know how I missed this book the first time, but was thrilled to read of this update in the Writer's Chronicle interview with the author. Ursula K. Le Guin is a masterful writer and one of the most eloquent about the work of making narrative. This short, easy-reading and very helpful book is as good as I expected it to be -- which is very good indeed.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Lara Lee
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great for writers!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2018
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story by Ursula K. Le Guin is a fantastic book, but don't read it thinking it will teach you how to write a novel. Instead, read Write and Revise for Publication by Jack Smith to learn how to take an idea from an outline to a novel. Then, when you finish with that, buy this book, Steering the Craft.

    In Steering the Craft, Ursula Le Guin talks about all the things that make good prose such as the sound of the language, rhythm, descriptions, story verse plot. She brings up all the rules we have heard over and over again such as: show don't tell; write in active voice, not the passive voice; don't use "be" verbs; and more -- and then tells you how to break them. She talks about grammar only to explain how not to be afraid of the semicolon or comas. She slices through so much of the bad advice I see over and over again online with an effortless logic that had me laughing at the truth of her statements. This is not a humorous book, but I tend to laugh at things gives me relief. Writing as contortionist around such arbitrary rules is tough! This book gives you the license and freedom to use all the tools the English language provides without fear or guilt.

    This book is orchestrated in such a way that it could be used in a writing group. Every chapter has exercises at the end to help you explore and learn the concepts by doing them. I am not a great team player, but I can see these activities would be beneficial for me to do on my own. I intend to go back and do them.

    This book makes a lot of sense once you are already writing and discover that something just doesn't sparkle. It is specifically for fiction writers and covers a lot of the vague frustrations of crafting elegant sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. I honestly would understand how vital her advice in this book was before I started writing. It is like learning to paint or play an instrument; certain lessons on make sense after you have been doing it some. So if you are a writer, I highly recommend this book!
    31 people found this helpful
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  • Terrance Aldon Shaw
    5.0 out of 5 stars Sailing the Sea of Story with an Expert Navigator
    Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2016
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    “Craft enables art” Ursula K. Le Guinn tells us in the introduction to her ‘Steering the Craft: A 21st-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story’. “There’s luck in art. And there’s the gift. You can’t earn that. But you can learn skill ... You can learn to deserve your gift.”

    Overflowing with valuable insight and inspiration, 'Steering the Craft' is among the best single-volume works on writing I’ve ever read—and I’ve read a lot of them over the decades, positively devouring anything I can get my hands on. If Stephen King’s wonderful ‘On Writing’ is a helpful and encouraging introduction to the subject—call it Writing 101—Le Guinn offers a more advanced and rigorously focused 200-level course that will be most helpful to those already-experienced writers in search of self-improvement and a more acute understanding of how story works.

    There is a difference, Le Guinn tells us, between the kind of straightforward expository prose we all learned to write in school, and the language of effective fiction—a distinction far too many aspiring storytellers have yet to grasp. The important thing for a writer, she says, “…is to know what you’re doing with your language and why.” She then proceeds to enlighten us in the most pleasing of ways, gently but firmly, never dogmatic, often with humor, stressing fundamentals without coming off as a snob or a “correctness bully”. “To break a rule you have to know the rule,” she says. “A blunder is not a revolution.”

    Le Guinn challenges received and conventional wisdom at every turn. For instance, where Stephen King tells us that “the road to hell is paved with adverbs,” Le Guinn gently insists that adjectives and adverbs “add color, life, and immediacy … They cause obesity in prose only when used lazily or overused.” And again, she points out, “It’s a myth that short-sentence prose is ‘more like the way we speak’ … The marvelously supple connections of complex syntax are like the muscles and sinews of a long-distance runner’s body, ready to set up a good pace and keep going.” And there were so many more wonderful, refreshing observations throughout the book, I found myself obsessively marking and underlining to a point where my copy could never be resold—not that I would ever part with it!

    I very much appreciate the way Le Guinn draws parallels between music and prose, stressing the essential importance of rhythm and the physical sound of language: “The similarity of … incremental repetition of word, phrase, image, and event in prose to recapitulation and development in musical structure is real and deep.” Elsewhere, punctuation is brilliantly demystified as it is likened to the use of rests in a musical score.

    The volume is designed as a workbook, and includes a number of skill-enhancing exercises, with copious examples of the various concepts discussed, drawn from classic works from the Brontë sisters to Dickens, Hardy and Virginia Wolfe, always with fascinating, trenchant commentary from Le Guinn.

    ‘Steering the Craft’ is a treasure! Enthusiastically recommended.
    84 people found this helpful
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  • Phil Nova
    5.0 out of 5 stars Calisthenics for writers
    Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2024
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    There is a certain kind of aspiring writer who will do everything to master their craft except the one thing that really matters -- writing. Unsurprisingly, most writing guides ask as little of the reader as possible. They are full of inspiration, encouragement, and even wacky exercises to stimulate creativity. But they don't demand that you sit down and use your keyboard or pen.

    This book is not for them; it's for people who want to become better writers by writing. Each of the short chapters follows a formula: a new concept is introduced, a few excerpts from great writers are used to illustrate the concept, and then it's on to writing exercises. These are short (generally a paragraph to a page), and less stories than building blocks of scenes. The reader is asked to write scenes using only dialogue, or cross-cut between different timelines as a character remembers something. LeGuin recommends that you write quickly, take a day to cool off, then revise until it's polished.

    This is not a publishing guide, and it's not about creativity or writer's block per se. It's focused narrowly on practicing the fundamentals. I think it'll be useful for a writer at any point on their journey, just as anyone from couch potato to pro athlete benefits from a stretching or calisthenics routine. The rewards are proportional to the effort you're willing to put in. Reading this book does't *feel* as good as some fluff about how everyone is already an artist, but it is more likely to help your writing. And "reading" is the wrong word anyway, because most of your time with this book will be spent practicing. I suspect the rewards would be even greater if used as part of a group with peer critique, but I found it valuable as a solo exercise too, as long as I stayed diligent.
    25 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Michelle Weber
    5.0 out of 5 stars hilfreicher Ratgeber
    Reviewed in Germany on March 13, 2025
    Format: KindleVerified Purchase
    Dieser Ratgeber verzichtet auf schnelle Lösungen und Formeln und ist daher vor allem für fortgeschrittene Autoren hilfreich. Am besten fand ich die Erklärung des Unterschiedes zwischen Story und Plot.
    Report
  • David Ash
    5.0 out of 5 stars A masterclass in writing, beautifully written.
    Reviewed in Spain on September 15, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    Wonderful book. If you want to take your writing to the level of greatness, this text will help you to do so.

    Le Guin is as eloquent in this masterclass as she is in her fiction, which is saying a great deal.

    The book also arrived quickly.
    Report
  • M C Donaldson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Un maitre de fiction
    Reviewed in France on September 13, 2020
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Ursula K. Le Guin est une des plus grandes écrivaines de 20ème siècle, alors ses mots sur la fiction ne sont pas une perte de temps.
    Report
  • Alan K. Dell
    5.0 out of 5 stars A masterclass in the art of writing, with useful short exercises and examples
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 3, 2023
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Steering the Craft is a fantastic short guide packed with lots of great insights and writing exercises across a range of different aspects of the craft. Mainly aimed at the kind of writer who’s been doing this thing a little while and wants to hone their craft, it’s an excellent resource for both lone and group work. As such, it doesn’t go over the basics like how to create characters, build fictional worlds etc… But focuses more on style.

    I have to admit, I haven’t tried the exercises myself at the time of writing this review - I wanted to read through and see what they were first - but I’ll absolutely be going back to do them, because they seem very useful indeed. The examples in the book are plentiful, and they’re all excerpts from classic literature (Twain, Austen, Woolf, Dickens etc…) which precisely illustrate the aspects of writing the section highlights, from how to use repetition to the different types of POV (and switching between them), and much more besides. There’s nothing specific about writing science fiction in here, apart from a passing mention about worldbuilding in the context of avoiding info-dumps, but I didn’t expect there to be. All the lessons within are applicable to writing as a whole, regardless of genre.

    One of the things that particularly spoke to me was the section about writing from a perspective that is not your own. I don’t struggle to empathise usually, but writing from a perspective I personally disagree with can be tricky to get right; to go deep and nuanced so as to not create a cartoon. And it’s a necessary part of writing complex characters, rather than simple authorial mouthpieces. The exercises in this section force you into writing from those kinds of perspectives a few times over with variations, which seems a good way to drive the point home. It’s especially good for those who learn by doing. Never fear, though, Le Guin doesn’t force us to do all the work. Thankfully, she provides a wealth of suitable prompts and ideas as jumping off points, as well as word count limits and detailed instructions. There’s even an exercise on writing a page worth of narrative with no adjectives or adverbs! It sounds like a marvellous challenge. Speaking of adverbs, as expected Le Guin takes a far more balanced stance on their use than a lot of writing advice you might find on the internet, which oftentimes tells budding authors to never use them. In fact, Le Guin deliberately avoids hard and fast “Rules of Good Writing”, and the book holds a good few opinion pieces in which she expresses her general disdain for them, as they often strip out all nuance.

    As with all of Le Guin’s books, her style of prose even in non-fiction flows so smoothly that it makes the whole thing remarkably easy-reading. And she even includes a glossary of grammatical terms at the back just in case we get stuck (I didn’t think I’d need it at all, but towards the end I certainly did, and I was grateful it was there). Best of all, I think, is that Steering the Craft is absolutely designed as a longer term study book, rather than a reference to dip in and out of. Another thing is that by no means is this a “how to write like Ursula K. Le Guin” book. Everything is carefully chosen to challenge a writer’s own creativity, rather than imposing a certain style. I’m looking forward to going back through it and trying out some of the exercises. Hopefully it’ll improve my writing and understanding of the craft a great deal.

    If you’re looking to go deeper with your own writing, I would absolutely recommend Steering the Craft. I’ve seen some people criticising the book for being a study guide, which I find a bit strange, because it’s very clearly marketed as such. It requires interactivity from the reader in order to be most useful as a resource. Although, there are plenty of passages of explanation and advice from Le Guin around the exercises and examples, such that you can indeed read it passively and still learn something.
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  • Jason Booth
    5.0 out of 5 stars A masterful guide by one of the 20th Century's finest literary minds
    Reviewed in Canada on April 18, 2023
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Having read several different books on writers' craft, storytelling, and the how-tos of drafting a novel, this book is both a breath of fresh air and a concrete guide to writing the story you really want to tell. I would not recommend this for the beginner, but for someone who already has the basics under their belt and is ready for something more challenging it will prove invaluable. Although it's a slim little tome, it packs weight in its words. A great addition to any serious writer's library.
    Report