Dandyfunk

Confessions of a How to Book Junkie

Wild Mind, Living the Writer's Life, by Natalie Goldberg

Much like her previous book, Writing Down the Bones,  Natalie Goldberg's Wild Mind contains short chapters and exercises about writing. They are not traditional exercises, they are things that usually begin "try this." She's not concerned with the plotting, manuscript formating or trying-to-find an agent aspects of some writing books, but the getting the thoughts down on paper type of writing. She does a lot a free writing, which is stream of consciousness writing without worrying about content or form. And every chapter has a nugget of a good idea at its core. This book leads you to write "wild" and get rid of the things holding you back.
I haven't done any of the exercises (yet!) but there were so many interesting topics here that I think I'll start a new series of post discussing them. I'll label them "Goldberg Variations."

Confessions of a How to Book Junkie

Reading Like a Writer, A guide for people who love books and for those who want to write them, by Francine Prose.

Just got this book a few days ago and I've already finished reading it. There are several different kinds of how-to writing books. Some focus on plot, or moving a story along, or are just famous writers writing about writing.
Prose takes a different approach, teaching by example: you can learn to write by studying good writing. There are may excerpts from different writers, most of whom I don't recognize. Prose is a "literary" writer, and as such there's no quotes from SF writers.
She begins with a chapter on "Words," moves up to "Sentences," and puts these together in "Paragraphs."
Of course there's more to writing then just putting your carefully chosen words into artistic sentences and your sentences into fully formed paragraphs, so the next topics are "Narration," "Character," and "Dialog."
The rest of the books covers the finer points, and concludes with a list of "Books to Be Read Immediately."
The trade paperback version adds an interview with Prose, and a nice section about her books.

Confessions of a How to Book Junkie

How to Write: Advice and Reflections by the Pulitzer Prize-wining  Richard Rhodes
(ISBN 9780688140953)
This book is by the writer of diverse works such as The Making of the Atomic Bomb, and The Ungodly, a novel about the Donner party. He calls "non-fiction" works verity,  the better to describe a genre that includes essays, biography, reportage, and historical narrative, and the book is somewhat slanted in that direction. Not much about short story writing, except for the useful analogy of "Short Story is to Novel as Essay is to Autobiography."
There's an excellent chapter on editing, as he takes the reader through the process he uses to write an essay, complete with revisions and re-typings.
He also has a unique description of POV: he calls what I've come to understand as "tight third person"  indirect first person. When writing closely from the POV of one character, he explains, it's like writing first person with all the "I's" changed to he or she. That way interior monologue can fit into third person narration.

The Writer's Journey

The Writer's Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers, by Christopher Vogler
ISBN 0-941188-70-1

    I've been hearing about "Mythic Structure" for years. Back when Star Wars was just a trilogy and not six movies, George Lucas commented that he had read Joseph Cambell's Hero with a Thousand Faces and applied many of the ideas to Star Wars. I knew something about Cambell, having seen the TV special "The Power of Myth." It didn't seem to me that the two had anything to do with each other. Myths and legends in a SF movie? Wasn't it all about gods and monsters?
Since I've started writing, I've come across a few references to the "Mythic Structure," and something called the "Hero's Journey." Again, I really didn't pay much attention. I wrote mostly science fiction, and any story that had structure or plots devices thrust upon it didn't seem like writing, more like formula fiction.

   

The Art of Dramatic Writing

The Art of Dramatic Writing, by Lajos Egri

This book is geared toward the stage, but Egri's take on premise works for stories, novels or plays. He gives many examples from plays (mostly older plays, since this was written in 1960) to illustrate his points. And something I haven't seen in any other how to book, he points out failings in well-known plays.
The basic idea of premise is dramatic idea, movement, and fulfillment. For example, the premise of Romeo and Juliet is "Great love defies even death."
Great love is the dramatic idea. Not just love, but great love.
Defies is the movement. It's how the premise is proved. Romeo and Juliet defy all obstacles to their love.
And Death is the fulfillment. It is the result of where the movement goes.

The Art of Fiction

The Art of Fiction, notes on craft for young writers by John Gardner

Another How to book that has been recommended. I have to say, of all the how to books I read, this one is one of the "densest." There's interesting ideas and observations not on every page but pretty much in every sentence.
One of the most interesting is "Fiction as Dream." Writing has to transport the reader into a fictional dream, to have him experience the writing in a deeper way than just reading the words. Fine as a theory, but how do you do it?
Well, the second section of the book is "Notes on the Fictional Process" with chapters on Common Errors, Technique and Plotting. The book ends with a section of exercises.
This was recent purchace, and I'm going to have to re-read, and take notes this time. More good ideas than you can catch on on read. And I want to start doing the exercises too.

Bird by Bird

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

I had heard about this book  a while ago and I bought it at a book store while I was in New Mexico. I forgot who recomended it, but since I haven't read anything by Anne Lamott, I didn't know what to expect.
First of all, it's not just about writing, it's also about life. There isn't much nitty gritty details on things like plot or manuscript preparation, but there is alot about what it means to be a writer, and how writers look at the world. As a added bonus, it's also very funny. I was laughing out loud on the airplane on my flight home.
She starts out with two excelent pieces of advice: allow yourself to write shitty first drafts, and work on short assignments. Just the thing to get your writing going, or to start up after a dry spell.

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, by Orson Scott Card.
Writer's Digest Books, isbn 0-89879-416-1

One of the best things about this book is that for examples of what OSC talks about he uses excerpts from other writers. He goes through a line by line analysis of the opening of Octavia Butler's Wild Seed, which I found fascinating. When writing a story, every single sentence is important, and what you write sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph has to tell the story in a logical way. I do a lot of this now when I study writing. I look at each sentence, try to figure out what's going on, try to figure out how it all relates to the over all story.

This book also describes OSC's MICE quotient, where stories are broken down according to Milieu, Idea, Character and Event. Something I usually do when outlining a story, and it's a big help.

I'm not sure if this book is still in print, WD books may bring things back into print from time to time. You might find a copy at Half.com or Abe books.

See all the "Confessions of a How-To Book Junkie" here.

Confessions of a "How-To Book" Junkie

This is an article I wrote for the GSHW newsletter awhile back. I'm going to make this an on-going feature, and I'll do short reviews of all the writing books I have. Look for them under the "Confessions" category on the side bar.

    Confessions of a "How-To Book" Junkie

    Creating Short Fiction by Damon Knight? Got it.
    On Writing by Stephen King? Got it.
    Telling Lies For Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block? My copy is dog-eared. It's on the shelf right next to the long out of print books by William Atheling  (James Blish as he's known when not writing criticism). Steering the Craft, Writing down the Bones, Zen in the Art of Writing, The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells, Science Fiction 101, Characters and Viewpoint, Beginnings, Middles and Ends, Handbook of Short Story Writing are all on that shelf too.

    What have I learned from all these books? First of all, I'm going to need a few more bookcases if I want to collect every writing book ever written. Second, Rudyard Kipling was spot on when he said "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays / And every single one of them is right!"€
If you read these books looking for one way to write or the "secret" of successful writers, you'll be disappointed. Just as every writer has his or her own style, each How To book is more a reflection on the writer than a universal guide to greatness.

    Knight has some great insights on speculative fiction short stories but if you are less interested in structure, the literary insights of Le Guin's Steering the Craft might be more helpful. Lawrence Block is a funny and creative writer of mysteries but if you treat your study of writing seriously, his flippant attitude may be off-putting.

    What's the aspiring writer to do? First of all, start each How To book with the idea that each piece of advice may not work for you or your style of writing. I read all of Characters and Viewpoint, but found the final chapter the one that answered all my questions about viewpoint.
 

    Beginnings, Middles and Ends by Nancy Kress is a wonderful book, with many checklists which summarize the ideas covered. With all How To books, your learning experience will be improved if in addition to carefully reading each one you take notes and highlight as you read. Kress has given you a head start by doing the summarization for you.

    When I finish a book, I write out the main ideas that I want to apply to my writing. Some of these ideas are written out on the inside cover of the notebook I use for story ideas. For example, one nugget of indispensable writing advice from On Writing is "Second draft = First draft -10%." What are the others? I won't bother to tell you, since they're the pieces of advice that I need -- what you need will be different.
   
    Where do you go once your bookcase (if not your house) is filled with every How To book ever written? Go to the ultimate How To book -- the actual novels and stories that appeal to you. Did your favorite author die without writing a book for the Writers Digest Book Club? No matter. Dig deep and look critically and what they wrote. It's all there on the page.

    For example, if you want to learn about characterization, take the story or novel with the character you find most interesting. How did the author introduce this character? How did we learn about them? What are they doing and saying that make them so memorable? Get out your highlighter and paper and pen. Do the research. The best How To book will be the one you write yourself.

A Writer's Reference

Here's my first Confession of a How-To book junkie.

A Writer's Reference, third edition, by Diana Hacker.
ISBN 0-312-13417-7    Still in print!

This was recommended as a good Grammar text, and it has a handy index on the inside front cover, and all the sections  are tabbed with cardstock pages for quick reference. Spiral bound, so if you pick up a used copy make sure all the pages are there. I can imagine someone just pulling out the pages they needed for a test. The sections aren't in alphabetical order, strangely enough (section C is first, and A and B are in the back).
I haven't used it much, but lately it's been out on my desk and I've been looking through it. I just found section W1, "Glossary of Usage" which looks to be the sort of items that Eric Patridge covers in Use and Abusage, but in less than 20 pages.
Geared toward research paper writing, there isn't much on creative writing, but if you need help with grammar or the basics of English, this would be a good place to start.