Frederick Barthelme’s The 39 Steps: A Primer on Story Writing, begins:

Step one in the great enterprise of a new and preferable you in the house of fiction is: Mean less. That is, don’t mean so much. Make up a story, screw around with it, paste junk on it, needle the characters, make them say queer stuff, go bad places, insert new people at inopportune moments, do some drive-bys. Make it up, please.

Expect more of the same plainspoken, excellent advice in the following 38 steps, which range from the enigmatic–#9)Grace Slick (yes, people, that’s the entire entry for #9)–to the fundamental: #11)Be sure there’s a plot for the reader to grasp; while not necessarily the center of the story, it’s key to lulling the reader into that comfort zone where he’s vulnerable.

The 39 Steps now appears on the blog of the long-respected Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi, where Barthelme has taught for almost three decades. You can also read an interview with Barthelme at Southern Scribe, which is a great spot for reading up on Southern writers.