Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer

Over the past few years, I have wanted to write novels, and have made several serious attempts at it. During this time, I decided to read various books on the topic, as this would help me to understand the art a little better. Now, a few books into reading about writing, I have discovered that there are many average writing books made by people who want to use their editing expertise to show that they have cracked the code of writing. This then sells copies to the inexperienced writer, as that writer believes that they have found the holy grail to solve all their writing problems.

This book is not that.

This book is, instead, a guide about starting writing and keeping that momentum, from one of the best, longest working people in the business. This book gives, at the very least, opinions on the art of writing, and solid reasons behind them. What gives these opinions weight, in my mind, is that the author merely gives his opinions, inviting us to disagree with him or not. Many of these ideas on how to write a novel are ones that tend to go against what one would see in writing classes and even in other writing books I have read. This makes for a good look into the differing ideas of writing as a whole.

The author reassures the reader that what their writing journey may look like is entirely their own. In the midst of the major ideas of fame and fortune working with a major studio, this author dispels that idea but also manages to artfully offer the reader encouragement nonetheless. This is a delicate balancing act between expectations of the real world, and not totally crushing our dreams, and the author toes this line well.

On the other hand, while there are some good reassurances on writing, I, personally found few tips on writing or editing. For example, let's take conflicting characters, there is nothing about how to write conflict in this story. For example, writing a story conflict chart, or how to make conflict real in the story, it is just that we should have conflict in our plot because that is what drives the story itself. From a writer's standpoint, this is something that may seem like a downgrade, as you may come here for writing advice, but I disagree. With Google and other resources, I find that there is a myriad of tools, we just need this book to hear that it can/should be done. How we do it is up to us.

Overall, I really enjoy this book, and I would say this readable text is a good way to confidently get you into writing anything fiction-related. This text motivates you to, at the very least, finish the thing, because that is a major accomplishment in and of itself. As I continue in my journey as a writer, I think that I am going to refer to this book again and again, which, for me, is saying something. I give it a five out of five.