Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott

[sophia_sol]

This is a writing advice book. And, like, it's a perfectly fine writing advice book? Says plenty of good and right things. But on the other hand, idk, writing advice books just do not turn my crank. So it was well-written enough that I read the whole thing anyways, but I didn't feel like I actually got anything out of it.

It doesn't help that the author is clearly writing to an audience of people for whom "writing" is "writing literary fiction and/or memoirs" which is....extremely far away from the kind of writing I like to do. So as I read the book I was analyzing the advice for whether it could help me with the fic I most recently got stuck on (a caper involving Vetinari and sparkledeath, which I am 150 words into and can get no further because I don't know how to write capers) and pretty much none of it was helpful. It was all about, like, drawing on your childhood and writing emotionally true things about people being people, and about writing as a career goal. Which is all very well, but does not help with writing comedy fanfic about a fictional representation of death and his sparkly cheekbones.

Comments

[sophia_sol]

Yeah, those are its major themes, and I guess I've just run into them enough other places that I didn't get anything out of reading about them again. I'm glad it was helpful for you though!

[princessofgeeks]

For a real nuts and bolts discussion of planning and executing a novel, I really got a lot out of The Weekend Novelist by Ray. It has a very down-to-earth discussion of plot.

It's kind of paint by numbers, but it's very practical and structured.

Also Gardner's books are good on plot too.

[sophia_sol]

I don't get excited about writing advice books in general, but if I ever feel the need I will check out your rec. Thanks!