Make Your Words Work - Indispensable Books For Writers

If I had to choose just one book that would help improve my writing, Make Your Words Work: Proven Techniques for Effective Writing for Fiction and Nonfiction by Gary Provost would probably be it.

What does Provost mean by his title?

"By writing that works, I mean writing that does the job it's supposed to do, whether that job is to inform, entertain, anger or instruct. Writing does not work if it only entertains when it is supposed to instruct. It does not work if it only angers when it is supposed to educate. Whether a piece of writing has been put together to convey factual information or to create images in a story, it should be judged not on good grammar or adherence to the rules of composition, (both of which are tools, not goals),  but on how well it does its job. Does it  work? Does this word reveal my character's feeling? Does this sentence convey the popularity of stock car racing? Does this paragraph communicate the feeling of despair these refugees have?"

 Make Your Words Work is down to earth from page 1. "Can Writing Be Taught?" he asks. "No," he says, "throw this book away." Provost's writing is conversational, easy to understand and witty. His examples are clearly illustrated and  entertaining as well as instructional. The book is broken up into workable chunks with exercises to solidify the concepts in your brain.

Not only does he cover the "usual suspects" of dialogue, description, viewpoint, pace and characterization, he talks about some of the unsung heroes of writing--things like music, unity, credibility, subtlety, tension, proportion and form.

Some of my favorite sections include, "Putting Description in Motion," "Use Strong Verbs," the entire chapter on Tension and...oh heck, the whole darn book. I like to use this book as a checklist when I edit my work, "am I varying the construction of my sentences? Can I milk the dialogue some more? Do I need to reorganize for better unity? Are my verbs pulling their weight?"

Provost teaches you how to turn your words into willing employees who make your writing clearer, more precise, more fun to read--and publishable! This book will make your words not just grip your readers, but pull them into an embrace and lead them on a tango across your pages.

Tathea - What I'm Reading

I adore the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt detective series, and having just begun reading the William Monk mysteries, I was thrilled to find Tathea, the first "fantasy" novel by Anne Perry.

The book begins with Ta-Thea, empress of Shinabar in the middle of coup. Her husband the Isarch and her small child have been murdered, and she escapes her would be murderers and  the palace with the help of a member of the guard.

Arriving in the Lost Lands, the home of her mother's people, she seeks to understand the meaning of life and the loss of her child. She finds an ancient hermit who warns her that her journey will cost her greatly, but she is determined to go.

From there, she sets off on a spirit journey with the Mariner, Ishrafeli. When she returns from these adventures she finds herself in possession of the Book of Truth.

Seeking to bring the word and love of God back to her people, she finds herself constantly challenged by Asmodeus and his minions.

As a non-Christian, I had some challenges with the fact that the book is a thinly-veiled Christian parable. Yet, I feel that in most part, it conveys the underlying message of Christianity in a better and clearer way than the Bible itself (on the occasions I've tried to slog through that book).

The character of Tathea herself is powerful and compelling. She endures hardship after hardship with an indefatigueable courage and grace. Though her falls from and rises to power are a rollercoaster, she clings to her faith even through pain and highest cost.

Fleeing through the desert, near the beginning of the book, she comes upon a woman who is mourning at her husband's grave. "You must have loved him very much," Tathea says. The woman replies that no, she didn't even like him much. She goes on to say:

    "Because he had life," she answered. "He had a chance to be brave and to seek the truth, to honor and defend it. He had time in which he could have faced fear and overcome it; to know himself without deceit, excuse or self-pity; to bear pain without bitterness. He had days in  which to laugh, to see beauty, to fill his heart with gratitude. He could have been kind and brave and generous...Above all, there were people he could have loved and learned to forgive. He is gone, and who is there in the world that is poorer?...Now all his chances are finished. Of course I weep for him!"

This scene sets the tone of story's message, and the trials, triumphs, sacrifices and betrayals that Tathea faces through her dark journey of the soul.

There are some messages in Tathea that I can't agree with, such as when Isadorus leaves his beloved mistress so that he will not break troth with a loveless marriage. With others, I agree, such as Tathea herself refusing to consummate a union with the man she loves because she loves his wife Eleni also, and knows he loves her as well.

Above all, the message is that mankind is given Choice, and has the ability to rise or fall on his own actions.

The writing is so clear as to be almost liquid. Soaring and gliding through light and shadow with an agility that seems near effortless. Much of the first half of the book reminded me of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, though I can't say exactly why.

This is not to say that it's an easy read. The book is long - over 500 pages - and it took me several weeks to read, as at certain points I needed to put it down and give myself a break. It is a book that will make you think, and examine your own beliefs and your own faults, triumphs and failures, whether or not you agree with every precept.

Tathea is a book that you may love or you may hate, or very possibly some of both. It is not a book that you will forget soon.

Sex Wars - What I'm Reading

It's post-Civil War New York. So what's the first thing you'd think of? A woman President, of course!  Based on the first real-life woman to ever run for the Presidency, this book is a rich tapestry of the Who's-Who of late Victorian NY. First we have Victoria Woodhull, a real life woman who starts out as a spiritualist medium attempting to get in the graces of millionaire Cornelius Vanderbilt who is seeking to make contact with his dead son, then becomes the first woman stockbroker and later aspires to the highest post in the land. Through Victoria we meet suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her friend Susan B. Anthony. as well as orator and statesman Frederick Douglass, Horace Greely and a host of other historical characters.

Contrasting the scheming and glamorous Victoria, we have a second fictional protagonist, Russian Jewish immigrant Freydeh Leibowitz, living in a tenement and who makes her living manufacturing and selling condoms.

Enemy to both, is Anthony Comstock, a moralist crusader who founded the New York Society for the Supression of Vice, and worked to make illegal the delivery or transportation of "obscene, lewd or lascivious" material or anything related to birth control. Playwright George Bernard Shaw worked to make a mockery of him, coining the word "comstockery," as "censorship because of perceived obscenity or immorality," but at the moment, he's thwarting both Victoria's rise to power and Freydah's livelihood.

Victoria Woodhull

Rich in history, intrigue, politics and betrayal, Sex Wars by Marge Piercy is brilliantly researched (Did you know that a married woman couldn't sign legal documents?) brutally honest and seething with sensuality as Freydah and Victoria battle the gender wars of their time.

"I'll Not" Write This Way and Other Regionalisms

Maybe its a southern thing. Two of my favorite authors (I won't name names but they both happen to be from the south) use the contraction "I'll not," and related contractions: s/he'll not, we'll not, they'll not, you'll not, they'd not, s/he'd not, I'd not.

It drives me buggy. One of these writers I've only caught in the act once or twice. The other one, I can count on her doing it at least three to four times in each novel. I read her work anyway, because she's a fabulous writer and I enjoy her style. But every time I come across it, my suspension of disbelief gets zapped to heck and I remember I'm reading a book.

Okay, color me nitpicky. As I understand it, the correct phrase would be "I won't, she won't," etc. Now I'll be the first to admit that I don't have the right to be the grammar police. For me, good writing is about learning the rules well enough, and then learning when to break them. And I start sentences with conjunctions. In fact the grammar checker on my word-processing program hates me. It often accuses me of writing sentence fragments. So I turn it off.

Maybe it is a regional thing. Her characters are from Georgia, and what do I know about how they talk there? So I deal.

Then one day this author brought in a character who was supposed to be from New York. And yes...you guessed it. He said, "I'll not."

At this point I had to take a short break from the book. I'm from New York. I know how we talk. New Yorkers do not talk that way. In fact we only say "do not" when we're ticked off or making a point. Otherwise we say, "don't."

So the moral of the story, if you're writing about a character with a background that's like yours, write the way you speak. If you're writing about someone from a different place, find someone who's from there and ask them to read over the dialogue. Or better yet, have them read it to you, over the phone or on voice chat.

What regionalisms have you noticed in your writing or another writer's and does it make "y'all" crazy. What good uses of regional dialect have you found?

Telling Lies for Fun & Profit - Indispensabe Books for Writers

The first time I read Telling Lies For Fun & Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block I was about twelve. Mom and I would take turns reading this one aloud while we did chores. It wasn't just an intelligent, useful book on writing, it was witty and a great read. We chortled, we cried, we read chapters over and over again, we went out to find his Matthew Scudder books, his Bernie Rhodenbarr books and anything else we could find by him. Yes, the writing in Telling Lies was just that good.

Block taught me a lot of important things about writing. Probably the most useful was when to give a bear a canoe.

The first part of the book is on the business of writing itself. And Block should know a lot about that. He has somewhere near 60 published novels, numerous short stories and articles; and his Writing the Novel From Plot to Print and Spider Spin Me a Web are also stellar books on the art and craft of writing.

Part Two of Telling Lies deals with getting your writing written, from setting writing hours, to dealing with writers block to revising effectively and where to find ideas to write about in the first place.

Parts Three and Four, however is where this particular book shines. Block teaches you how to start a story with a bang...or a body; and why you shouldn't start at the beginning. He handles details, transitions, creating a strong plot and a powerful, sympathetic character...and then making his life miserable. Then the details of making your writing exciting to read, covering dramatic dialogue, creating verbs with punch and sultry adjectives.

If I had to choose one writing book from my shelf and give up all the others Telling Lies for Fun and Profit would probably be the one I'd keep. Now excuse me while I marmelade some toast, and jump into my canoe to go hunt down a bear as I cuddle up with this old friend.

 Search Amazon.com for Lawrence Block

Catch As Cat Can - What I'm Reading

Just finished Catch as Cat Can by Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown (her cat), my latest in the Mrs. Murphy Mysteries.

If you're not familiar with them, Mrs. Murphy is a tiger cat who lives in Crozet, Virgina and likes to solve mysteries with the help of her human, postmistress "Harry" Haristeen, Tee Tucker, her faithful corgi companion and Pewter, her feline buddy.

In Catch as Cat Can, spring is in the air, the Dogwood Festival is about to start and BoomBoom Craycroft (not Harry's favorite person) is hooking Harry up with a handsome diplomat from Uruguay, which doesn't make Harry's ex, Fair Haristeen happy. Meanwhile a dead woodpecker and a set of stolen hubcaps lead to the inevitable dead body. This is a murder mystery, after all!

Crozet is a charming little middle-of-nowhere town with a host of quirky locals and seemingly a good number of murders and intelligent pets. There's Miranda, a sixtyish widow who works at the post office with Harry, bakes scrumptious muffins and can quote the Bible perfectly; Big Mim, the "Queen" of Crozet society; Little Mim, Big Mim's daughter who's still trying to find herself; the loveable Reverend Herb and Cynthia Cooper the sherrif's deputy, who's bound and determined to find the killer, with Harry and Mrs. Murphy's help. This book also introduces us to Pope Rat, a rather despicable rodent and Abraham a courtly and helpful old hound.

I've adored Rita Mae Brown's novels since I first encountered Six of One, a rollicking tale about a pair of sisters growing up in the prohibition era, in the equally amusing town of Runnymede, MD who have been "fighting like banty roosters" since 1905.

As with most of Rita Mae Brown's Mrs. Murphy books, things start off slow - after all, nothing ever happens in Crozet, right? - but soon leads Harry into danger, and her animal friends have to get her out. If you're like me and enjoy starting with the first of a series, I recommend Wish You Were Here.