The following five books have been cited again and again as the top five books all writers should read and own. I already own two of them (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott). Bird by Bird is my particular favourite, having re-read it three times in the last two years, I find it a wealth of practical knowledge.
1. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. While taking his reader on an autobiographical journey through his early years as an unsuccessful writer, King provides practical advice on staying the course, managing failure, establishing a writing “toolbox”, and making writing a part of life. He is both blunt and sympathetic, but, most of all, he is true and passionate. In an interesting note to add to our discussions on creative writing courses, during the years King taught English he wrote very little as by most Friday afternoons he felt as if he ‘spent the week with jumpers cables clamped to his brain” and despaired about his future as a writer. It was his wife however that encouraged him to keep writing.
2. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg. While countless books exist on the stacks of every bookstore that reveal the secrets of how to avoid bad writing, Goldberg bucks the trend and instead crafts a piece that refreshingly discusses how to construct good writing. She works to “uneducated” writers by subtracting rules and freeing the writer’s soul. The experience with the book is both empowering and liberating, for you feel you can actually write with passion and creativity without feeling the weight of constraining rules.
3. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Lamott attempts to take the complexity out of the process and to remove the enormity of the task. With skill and grace, she encourages writers to start small, to care deeply about the characters and not the plot, to engross one’s self in the heart of the piece rather than in just the end product. Admirably, she reminds writers that even if few read the piece, to have complete it with heart is a honourable thing.
4. The Elements of Style by William Strunck, Jr, and E.B. White. Heavy on the proper rules of writing well, Strunk and White provide an endless classic in the world of word craftsmanship. They give the reader a solid and concise look at the practical purposes in composition and usage of the English language. While certainly not an inspirational book, no piece exists that will do more for a writer's understanding of the language he employs than Strunk and White's masterpiece.
5. Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O'Conner. Called "the best thing to happen to grammar since Strunk and White", this book makes the technical and often intimidating language of grammar both tolerable and simple. In ten basic lessons, O'Conner reviews how to take the sting out of common grammar errors that often disrupt a writer's work and, thus, a reader's interpretation. Fun and easy to read, O'Conner's book is a must for any writer's bookshelf.
Friday
How to Become a Good Writer by Marvin Olasky
Evocative images, provocative thoughts, tension without pretension -- that's what makes for good writing. I've seen so much poor writing lately that, as a public service, I'll offer some advice from great authors who also became fed up with pretentious prose.
Let's start with Mark Twain: "When you catch adjectives, kill most of them -- then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together; they give strength when they are wide apart."
Novelist John Gardner: "The abstract is seldom as effective as the concrete. ‘She was distressed' is not as good as, even, ‘She looked away.'"
And Jacques Barzun: "Look for all fancy wordings, and get rid of them."
William Strunk Jr. (co-author of a great little book, "The Elements of Style") writes: "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences."
Specific detail is vital, as the other co-author, E.B. White, once advised: "Don't write about Man, write about a man."
Note this from writing teacher William Zinsser: "Look for the clutter in your writing, and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Re-examine each sentence that you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? ... Simplify. Simplify."
Here's good advice from George Orwell: "Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short word will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive where you can use the active."
Essayist Sheridan Baker noted similarly, "Never use a long word when you can find a short one. ... Pick up every sentence in turn, asking ourselves if we can possibly make it shorter."
Overall, it's important to emphasize quality rather than quantity: Better to have one telling bit of specific detail than 12 nothings. (Cervantes' worst nightmare: "Let every man ... not set down at random, higgle-de-piggledy, whatever comes into his noddle.") Content and style need to go together. Look what happens to this romantic image when we couch it in math book prose: "The long -separated lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 7 p.m. traveling at 50 mph, the other from Topeka at 4 p.m. at a speed of 40 mph."
If you're thinking about becoming a professional writer, assess your temperament as well as your talent. Novelist Isaac Asimov, commenting on a classic editor's statement -- "We don't reject writers; we reject pieces of paper with typing on them" -- added: "Don't stay mad and decide you are the victim of incompetence and stupidity. If you do, you'll learn nothing and you'll never become a writer. ... Don't make the opposite mistake and decide the story is worthless. Editors differ, and so do tastes, and so do magazines' needs. Try the story somewhere else."
The way not to learn is to assume that friends who say "you're great" have good judgment. Young writers need true friends, teachers and editors who are willing to make them cry. All are hard to find in this age of emphasizing self-esteem rather than offering tough honesty.
So maybe Mark Twain's way of discerning a calling is best: "Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon his circumstances with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for."
Finally, for those who persevere, what Ptahotep wrote in ancient Egypt can be true: "Be a scribe! You sit grandly in your house, beer is poured copiously. All who see you rejoice in good cheer." Yes, but you must be prepared to give it up.
Ptahotep noted, "Happy is the heart of him who writes; he is young each day." Yes, but only if he writes from the heart, and not just for copious beer.
_________________________________________________
Marvin Olasky is the editor-in-chief of World and a professor of journalism at The University of Texas at Austin. Learm more about World at: www.Worldmagblog
Let's start with Mark Twain: "When you catch adjectives, kill most of them -- then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together; they give strength when they are wide apart."
Novelist John Gardner: "The abstract is seldom as effective as the concrete. ‘She was distressed' is not as good as, even, ‘She looked away.'"
And Jacques Barzun: "Look for all fancy wordings, and get rid of them."
William Strunk Jr. (co-author of a great little book, "The Elements of Style") writes: "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences."
Specific detail is vital, as the other co-author, E.B. White, once advised: "Don't write about Man, write about a man."
Note this from writing teacher William Zinsser: "Look for the clutter in your writing, and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Re-examine each sentence that you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? ... Simplify. Simplify."
Here's good advice from George Orwell: "Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never use a long word where a short word will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive where you can use the active."
Essayist Sheridan Baker noted similarly, "Never use a long word when you can find a short one. ... Pick up every sentence in turn, asking ourselves if we can possibly make it shorter."
Overall, it's important to emphasize quality rather than quantity: Better to have one telling bit of specific detail than 12 nothings. (Cervantes' worst nightmare: "Let every man ... not set down at random, higgle-de-piggledy, whatever comes into his noddle.") Content and style need to go together. Look what happens to this romantic image when we couch it in math book prose: "The long -separated lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 7 p.m. traveling at 50 mph, the other from Topeka at 4 p.m. at a speed of 40 mph."
If you're thinking about becoming a professional writer, assess your temperament as well as your talent. Novelist Isaac Asimov, commenting on a classic editor's statement -- "We don't reject writers; we reject pieces of paper with typing on them" -- added: "Don't stay mad and decide you are the victim of incompetence and stupidity. If you do, you'll learn nothing and you'll never become a writer. ... Don't make the opposite mistake and decide the story is worthless. Editors differ, and so do tastes, and so do magazines' needs. Try the story somewhere else."
The way not to learn is to assume that friends who say "you're great" have good judgment. Young writers need true friends, teachers and editors who are willing to make them cry. All are hard to find in this age of emphasizing self-esteem rather than offering tough honesty.
So maybe Mark Twain's way of discerning a calling is best: "Write without pay until somebody offers pay. If nobody offers within three years, the candidate may look upon his circumstances with the most implicit confidence as the sign that sawing wood is what he was intended for."
Finally, for those who persevere, what Ptahotep wrote in ancient Egypt can be true: "Be a scribe! You sit grandly in your house, beer is poured copiously. All who see you rejoice in good cheer." Yes, but you must be prepared to give it up.
Ptahotep noted, "Happy is the heart of him who writes; he is young each day." Yes, but only if he writes from the heart, and not just for copious beer.
_________________________________________________
Marvin Olasky is the editor-in-chief of World and a professor of journalism at The University of Texas at Austin. Learm more about World at: www.Worldmagblog
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