How To Write Like Tolstoy: A Journey into the Minds of Our Greatest Writers

Behind every acclaimed work of literature is a trove of heartfelt decisions. The best authors put painstaking-sometimes obsessive-effort into each element of their stories, from plot and character development to dialogue and point of view.



Veteran editor and teacher Richard Cohen draws on his vast reservoir of a lifetime's reading and his insight into what makes good prose soar. Here are Gabriel García Márquez's thoughts on how to start a novel ("In the first paragraph you solve most of the ...