I've had this book for a little while, but only just got around to reading it. I was concerned that it might be hard going, but it was just the opposiI've had this book for a little while, but only just got around to reading it. I was concerned that it might be hard going, but it was just the opposite: presented simply almost to the point of a fault. However, this makes it clear and straightforward, and the minimal jargon that inevitably needs to be used is explained well and with examples.
It's short, and much of its content I've read before in one place or another, but there's still value in setting out, step by step, the issues of representing diversity in fiction (particularly SFF). I was left feeling like I'd received clear and practical guidance in writing stories which feature characters unlike myself.
Ultimately, it boils down to "people are people"; people who are different still share a common humanity, and their differences, while it's important not to erase or ignore them, are not the total of everything they are. Approaching their stories with respect and openmindedness will take you a long way, and if you mess it up, that's not the final word; back off and retry.
I'd already heard much of the advice in this book, in part because Mary Robinette Kowal of the Writing Excuses podcast is a fan and refers to it oftenI'd already heard much of the advice in this book, in part because Mary Robinette Kowal of the Writing Excuses podcast is a fan and refers to it often. It was still worth reading, as it takes the reader through a number of important considerations about characterisation and allied subjects: not only how to use the techniques, but when and why. I highlighted a great many useful and well-considered passages.
Card's basic view of writing is that in telling stories, we are influencing people to expand their understanding of the human condition; that by presenting fictional characters we can help our readers understand them more than they have ever understood a real person, and to understand themselves. This involves making the reader care about, believe in, and comprehend the story that you're telling and the characters in it. In order to do this effectively, we need to understand the techniques of characterisation.
Along the way, he considers the question of the epic hero versus the ordinary person; the comic character and the serious character; the hero and the villain; character change; voice; and viewpoint. Throughout, he explains the techniques in terms of the likely effect on the reader.
The Kindle edition has been scanned from a print copy, but competently, and there are only a few small errors (such as a missing blank line after the sentence "This is what a line break looks like").
Part 1 of this is more "rambling reflections on what it's like to write for Seinfeld" than anything to do with "advice on writing humor in general". EPart 1 of this is more "rambling reflections on what it's like to write for Seinfeld" than anything to do with "advice on writing humor in general". Even at the time, the show wasn't accepting spec scripts, as the speaker says several times, and the discussion is so Seinfeld-specific that there's not a lot of general advice to be found. Not to say it isn't interesting, but it's not "How to write selling humor". In fact, it closes with advice that the likelihood of placing a script with a comedy show is tiny. There is one useful piece of advice near the end: take your time to revise and make your work as good as it can be, rather than rushing it out.
The second part is much more focussed, much more useful, and much more what it says on the tin. The speaker is a professor with a PR background, and uses mnemonics and examples to teach the basics of writing humor. He's also a lot more encouraging, stating that publications, speakers and other outlets can't find enough good humor writers....more
This is the second writing book I've read by Nancy Kress, and like Beginnings, Middles & Ends, it is excellently laid out and extremely thorough. It cThis is the second writing book I've read by Nancy Kress, and like Beginnings, Middles & Ends, it is excellently laid out and extremely thorough. It covers characterisation, emotion, and point of view with considerable depth and insight, and made me think through these elements of craft in detail and spot areas where I could improve.
Even though I consider myself an intermediate-level writer, have read a good many craft books, and am told that characters are among my strengths, I still learned a lot from it, just because it is so lucid and comprehensive. I particularly appreciated the summaries at the end of each chapter, and the further bullet-point summary at the end of the book.
There are exercises at the end of each chapter. Following my normal (probably bad) practice, I didn't do these. Nor did I think the idea of writing up a "mini-bio" for each character would help me very much, at least not in the very specific format that the author gives. I do write character notes, but I adapt the content to what I'm setting out to do with the characters and what kind of book I'm writing, and I think this would be more useful than following a template exactly.
Examples in the book are mostly taken from literary novels, but the author does spend some time talking about the differences in practice between "literary" and "commercial" fiction.
Apart from confusing "discreet" and "discrete" and a couple of minor typos, the editing is good.
Overall, recommended for writers who want to improve their craft, and I appreciate having it recommended to me by a colleague. ...more
There's a certain kind of blog that, for SEO purposes, hosts frequent guest posts around whatever its theme is. Those guest posts are often poorly-exeThere's a certain kind of blog that, for SEO purposes, hosts frequent guest posts around whatever its theme is. Those guest posts are often poorly-executed statements of the blindingly obvious, there only to fill up space and increase keyword density.
Unfortunately, I felt that some of the contributions to this book fell into the same trap. There are sixty chapters in all, none of them very long, which means that they're also not in much depth. If there were one or two good points in each chapter, that would be OK, though not really what I was looking for--I want something that goes into depth on intermediate to advanced topics in writing craft, not another restatement of the basics. However, a few of the contributions don't even have much to say that would be helpful to a beginner, and some of them also make headdesk-worthy simple writing errors (mostly homonyms). These are graduates of the Seton Hill MFA in Popular Fiction, which doesn't fill me with confidence in the value of the course. (Of course, it isn't setting out to teach "how to write valuable, insightful nonfiction". The graduates may write perfectly fine popular fiction, and homonym errors are hardly rare even among award-winning authors. Still, such skills do matter.)
Too many books on writing are written by people who aren't primarily known as good writers. This is not one of them. Damon Knight was a well-respectedToo many books on writing are written by people who aren't primarily known as good writers. This is not one of them. Damon Knight was a well-respected and prolific writer, as well as a teacher of writing over many years at the highly-regarded Clarion workshops.
His depth of knowledge and insight are on display on every page of this book. Though a lot of the advice is foundational and suitable for beginners, as an intermediate writer I found plenty to learn. Occasionally, it feels like a collection of thoughts around a theme rather than an argument that flows throughout a section, but each portion contains valuable gems.
Although Knight was a science fiction author, very little of the advice is specific to SF. Most of the advice would also be just as useful for novelists as for short story writers. However, the section on short story structure provides confirmation of something I'd begun to suspect, but have never seen taught anywhere else. A lot of writing advice tends to assume that a short story is just like a novel, only in miniature, and needs to have what Knight calls the "plot skeleton" (five-act, or at least three-act, structure). Knight's opinion--and mine, based on reading a great many successful short stories that don't have that structure--is that a short story can have any of a number of structures, as long as it does have a structure, a unity, and a sense of completion. (Many of today's short stories seem to dispense with the sense of completion, but personally I find those stories unsatisfying.)
Even though it's now several decades old, most of this book--apart from a couple of things about technology and the industry at the very end--has aged well, and the advice remains useful and relevant. Surprisingly, much of it hasn't been repeated endlessly in other people's advice books, either.
Definitely worth reading, especially if you write short stories....more
I've long admired Ursula Le Guin's writing, which manages to be simultaneously literary-not-pretentious and genre-not-cliched. So as part of my projecI've long admired Ursula Le Guin's writing, which manages to be simultaneously literary-not-pretentious and genre-not-cliched. So as part of my project of reading books on writing craft to improve my own writing, I picked up this little volume.
I'll admit that I have a bad habit of not doing the exercises, so I didn't get as much out of it as I perhaps could have. I applaud the general approach, though, of looking at the basic elements of writing (definitely including getting grammar and punctuation correct), isolating them, and working through exercises to see what the effect is. Only by understanding our tools and the effects they produce do we become capable craftspeople.
I also appreciated the acknowledgement that plot is not the only way to get a story, and conflict is not the only way to get a plot. Here's Ms Le Guin:
"I define story as a narrative of events (external or psychological) which moves through time or implies the passage of time, and which involves change. "I define plot as a form of story which uses action as its mode, usually in the form of conflict, and which closely and intricately connects one act to another, usually through a causal chain, ending in a climax. "Climax is one kind of pleasure; plot is one kind of story. A strong, shapely plot is a pleasure in itself. It can be reused generation after generation. It provides an armature for narrative that beginning writers may find invaluable. "But most serious modern fictions can't be reduced to a plot, or retold without fatal loss except in their own words."
Did I learn a great deal from this book, as an intermediate writer trying to reach the next level? No. But I'm glad I read it, because it helped me think through (again) some important ideas about writing, and I would definitely recommend it. ...more
Basically, this book is about analysing three recent books that have sold well and are in the subgenre you want to write in, so that you can write a bBasically, this book is about analysing three recent books that have sold well and are in the subgenre you want to write in, so that you can write a book that's very similar.
I can see why someone might want to do that, but personally I don't. ...more
This is a classic book on writing technique, focussed on writing one particular kind of book. I'd call that kind of book "action-oriented popular fictThis is a classic book on writing technique, focussed on writing one particular kind of book. I'd call that kind of book "action-oriented popular fiction" - basically a thriller or suspense novel. That's not to say that the techniques aren't useful for writing other kinds of books, but the less your book is like a thriller, the less useful the advice will be.
I've shared extensive notes on Google+ under the hashtag "#sceneandstructure", so I won't repeat them here. However, in broad outline, Bickham lays out an approach that will give you a linear story - flowing logically and naturally from a disturbing change that challenges the character at the beginning to a resolution at the end.
He does this by proposing a structure he calls "scene and sequel". A scene is a moment-by-moment recounting of things that happen, starting with a character goal, moving through conflict that prevents the character from reaching the goal, and finishing with a "disaster" that leaves the character worse off than before. A sequel is about the character reacting to the scene emotionally, thinking about it, and deciding what to do next. Obviously, they follow one another neatly in alternation.
This kind of stimulus/response structure also occurs at lower structural levels. It's almost fractal, though he doesn't use that word.
Bickham does a beautifully clear job of explaining this, and then goes deeper, setting out how to vary the structure, how to resolve problems, and finally how to create a "master plot" to guide you through your story with the scene/sequel structure. He closes with useful appendices, giving examples from published fiction and breaking them down line by line to demonstrate his points.
I'd recommend this book if your writing has ever had any of the following common criticisms:
- It doesn't flow well - It doesn't make sense or is hard to follow - It fails to grip the reader - Characters do things for no logical reason in order to serve the author's plot - It's all action with no depth - It's all reflection with no action - The plot meanders with no clear purpose - It was too slow to get going - Everything fell apart in the middle - The ending made no sense and didn't follow on from what had happened previously - The villain's actions made no sense - The stakes were too low and I didn't care about them - The plot seemed contrived and ridiculous - I didn't care about what happened to the characters.
Again, if your first priority isn't to keep the reader up late into the night turning the pages, this may not be the book for you. But if you have goals even vaguely adjacent to that, I strongly suggest you pick up a copy....more
One of the pull quotes on the cover of this book (from a review in The Writer) says: "Explains all the basics of writing fiction in a simple, easy-to-One of the pull quotes on the cover of this book (from a review in The Writer) says: "Explains all the basics of writing fiction in a simple, easy-to-understand manner." That's an excellent summary.
For a beginning writer, this will be tremendously valuable as an introduction to the important factors you need to consider when writing fiction: character, plot, point of view, description, dialogue, setting, pacing, voice, theme, and revision. (There's a closing chapter on the business of writing, but it's a bit outdated and almost entirely about traditional publishing.)
For an intermediate writer, which is what I consider myself to be, it's a good revision text with the occasional useful bit of advice, like "give your characters contradictions" or "after you write your first draft, decide what the story is about and rewrite with that in mind". If you've spent much time learning from other sources, though, whether it be podcasts like Writing Excuses, other introductory books, writer blogs, or workshops, most of the content will be thoroughly familiar, well-trodden ground.
Although genre fiction is mentioned (in a patronising kind of way) in the first chapter, and the classes at the Gotham Writers' Workshop include some on genre fiction, almost all of the examples that are used throughout the book are from literary classics of the 19th and 20th centuries. There's nothing wrong with that - they're widely acknowledged as examples of good writing, and serve to show that different authors take very different approaches to the "rules" - but if you're not that familiar with literary fiction, some of the points may pass you by.
There are exercises, which would be valuable if the skills are new to you.
This was excellent, not least because it's very well laid out, with a clear flow from point to point and chapter to chapter. (As you would hope from aThis was excellent, not least because it's very well laid out, with a clear flow from point to point and chapter to chapter. (As you would hope from a book on beginnings, middles and ends.)
All too many craft books, I'm finding, don't have much to teach anyone who isn't a beginner. This is an exception. Even though some of the ground it covers is inevitably ground I've seen covered before, it does it so clearly and thoroughly that it provides fresh insight.
For example, the section on endings gave me an "aha!" moment about one of my own stories. The editor I'd submitted to liked it apart from the ending, and requested a rewrite. I realised, reading Nancy Kress's explanation, why the rewritten ending had worked where the original had not: it directly addressed the conflict which started in the first paragraph and was developed through the middle of the story.
This was the main point I gained from the book: the beginning, middle and end form a unity. However, there's also useful material on characterisation, motivation, promises, climaxes, and a structured approach to revision.
The author helpfully points out some differences between short stories and novels along the way. She also makes clear something that had been vague to me: how non-plotted or "literary" stories are supposed to work, and how to signal that you're writing one of those, and not a plotted story. I believe I'll now approach the non-plotted stories I read with more appreciation for what the author is doing.
This is the second book I've read in the Elements of Fiction Writing series (the first being the highly useful Scene and Structure), but I'll be searching out the others, given the excellent quality of both the ones I've read so far....more
This book is in double contrast to the last book I reviewed on writing craft, Jodi Henley's Practical Emotional Structure. The first contrast is that This book is in double contrast to the last book I reviewed on writing craft, Jodi Henley's Practical Emotional Structure. The first contrast is that this one is well-organised and clearly expressed. The other contrast, unfortunately, is that, unlike the Henley, it didn't really give me much that was new in the way of content.
At $3.99 for a very short book (I read it in little over an hour, and the last quarter is extracts from and advertisements for her other work), I feel it's overpriced, to the point that I almost returned it for a credit on Amazon. I didn't, though, because it is very well structured and laid out, and does give a useful overview of an important writing skill, and I can imagine myself referring back to it as I work on my novel. (It's aimed at novels rather than short stories.)
It does tend towards the formulaic: have this many scenes and sequels in a chapter, they contain these elements in this order, start your scene with a statement of your scene goal (yes, in the actual text of your novel). I tend to think that formulaic advice produces formulaic writing, but you do need to know your scales before you can improvise.
Will I be implementing some of this advice? I'm sure I will, as I tighten my novel up and increase the tension at points where it's lacking. Will I write to the exact template? Probably not. Would I advise a beginning writer to buy this and read it? On the whole, yes, with a warning not to start painting by numbers.
And I'd feel happier about my purchase if it had been a dollar or so cheaper. ...more
This is the first of what I hope will be a series of reviews of "writing craft" books. I plan to read at least a dozen this year, with the aim of takiThis is the first of what I hope will be a series of reviews of "writing craft" books. I plan to read at least a dozen this year, with the aim of taking my craft up another notch and selling more fiction as a result.
I began with this one because I recognise emotional engagement as a weakness in my fiction, one I want to work on. Did it help? Yes, it did, though I felt that with a thorough edit it would have been much clearer and helped a lot more.
There's a danger that a book like this becomes simply "how to manipulate the reader," and once or twice it did stray in that direction: "To keep selling stories, a reader needs to identify you as the person who can hit all their buttons on a consistent basis," the author says (dangling her participle). However, it isn't simply that. What the author is talking about is best summed up in this quotation from the final chapter:
"Emotional structure is actually a series of three things—the way your character feels about the story and plot (putting “emotion into your story”), pre-thinking (your emotional hooks and triggers) and a character’s emotional arc."
Emotional response that appears on the page helps the reader identify with the character and feel along with them. Emotional hooks and triggers are (if I've understood correctly) the relationships and emotional memories that the character has, which again help the reader imagine themselves into the character's life and experience, and care about what happens to them. And the character's emotional arc is the change in the character's (habitual) emotional state, or their emotional landscape, over the course of the story. For example, a character may go from being emotionally closed off and grieving to emotionally open and able to love again.
I marked a few other key quotations from the book as I went through, and here are some:
"If I can remove my heroine and replace her with an archetype, then I don't have emotion or the right people in my story." I thought this was an interesting idea that could have been expanded on. It seems to be talking about the importance of particularity in our characters. A story needs to be about this person in particular, who is uniquely fitted to being in this story because of what has happened to her in the past and how she's responded to it.
"A core event is the psychological reason your character reacts to story events in a consistent way." The author's concept of a "core event," something in the character's backstory that shapes her outlook on life in a way that is important to the story, is central to her approach. She makes the point that it can go in multiple directions, according to the character's personality and the needs of the story. The same thing happening to two different characters can produce two very different stories. But because it's such a significant emotional event, it consistently shapes the character's reactions (and actions). Only when the character's perspective on the core event changes, as the result of a new, equally significant event, can the character's emotional landscape change permanently.
"Justified anger is not conflict. It’s just anger." But unreasonable anger, driven by misinterpretation, or by confusing what just happened with something that happened a long time ago? That's conflict fuel.
"What makes her do what she does and what will tear her apart if she doesn't?" This is another perspective on the core event.
"While you can definitely create a story without conflict, the depth of the emotional arc is shallow which means there’s no reason to have all these story events because it shows the same thing over and over and the outcome is never in any doubt." That sentence needs commas (I'll talk about punctuation further below), but the idea is that a story without conflict is a mere recitation of events. Without conflict, nothing will change, and so one event can stand in for all.
"Plot grows out of how your character reacts to or takes control of what’s already going on in your story." There are various definitions of "plot," but this one (plot is the outward events which are needed to advance the emotional story, essentially) is a useful one. As the author, it's up to you to construct a plot which fits the emotional direction of the story. "Changing an emotional reaction to the core event changes what the story is about on a very fundamental level (the theme)."
"Some people are full of angst and some aren't. Using the right focal point creates the right amount of emotional depth for the story you’re trying to tell." This was something of a relief to me. I'm not a highly emotional person myself, even by the standards of my low-emotional-expression culture, and I'm not up for the common practice of standing off and flinging tragedies at your characters until the audience cries. It may win Hugos, but it doesn't win me over. However, giving my characters some emotional stakes, some emotional driver which shapes their responses to the world, is going to help me engage my readers more, and I can adjust the sliders appropriately. Not everyone needs a deeply tragic backstory in which everyone in their village, including their parents, was horribly killed (epic fantasy authors, take note), but everyone has had something significant happen to them, something that influences how their subsequent story plays out, and by connecting to that we establish an emotional truth for our characters which our readers will recognise and identify.
"Write what you love, but realize…you love a lot of other things, too." This addresses the balance between being true to yourself and gaining an audience. If you begin with human universals, things you care about that other people care about too, your audience will be bigger than if you ride your hobby-horse until it's dead and then beat it.
All of this is good stuff. Now, to the not-so-good.
First and most obviously, the author needs remedial punctuation classes. Not just for her horrible habit of using scare quotes for emphasis instead of italics (it put me in mind of a manager I knew who would do the same with air quotes), but because she clearly has no idea when to use a comma, semicolon or em dash, and just uses them more or less at random. Along with sentences that change grammatical direction partway through, or are missing key words, and her habit of mixing together several examples and flipping between them without signalling clearly, the inept punctuation makes the book less clear and less useful than it would otherwise be. Both at the level of macro-structure (the progression from chapter to chapter to make a clear argument) and at the level of micro-structure (sentences and phrases that convey that argument clearly and unambiguously), the book has a lot of room for improvement.
It's useful enough that I give it four stars anyway, but be aware that the rating is more for the content than it is for the form....more
I'm making it a goal this year to read books on writing craft, and far too many of them are dry repetitions of the same tired advice. This one is not.I'm making it a goal this year to read books on writing craft, and far too many of them are dry repetitions of the same tired advice. This one is not. It goes beyond the standard advice, sometimes contradicting it or taking it to a different and more subtle place. In this, it's an excellent resource for an intermediate writer, or someone who's aiming to take their writing beyond competence to the point where editors will see something in it that isn't often encountered in their slush piles. Which is to say, it's an excellent resource for me.
Jeff Vandermeer has a distinct style and approach, which is darker and stranger and more literary than I'm personally interested in. I didn't love the style of the illustrations, either, for similar reasons. That's why this book isn't a perfect fit for me and so doesn't get five stars. But he (along with other well-known writers who contribute their own perspectives) certainly provides plenty of food for thought and stimulus to the imagination. He goes beyond the mechanical to the cultivation of that imaginative part of our minds that comes up with the best and most compelling story ideas, marrying the rational and reflective with the creative in a way I've not seen before. He manages to avoid both the Scylla of "here is the formula, just pour words into this mould and you'll be fine" and the Charybdis of "writing can't be taught, analysed or understood".
Having read it, I can now see why there's no Kindle edition. The layout of the book, with "asides" that interrupt the main argument, and the illustrations large and small, diagrammatic and inspirational, all require the print format. To be honest, having to leap back and forth across the pages when a two-page "aside" was dropped into the middle of the flow was mildly annoying in the print version. It would be almost infeasible in an ebook.
I've made numerous notes, which I'm sure I will revisit many times as I chase the elusive goal of becoming a writer whose imagination is yoked firmly to the chariot of craft, but still able to gallop. ...more
Loading...
