A book review written by: Lee Sonogan
(2009) Education, Creative writing tips
“Learn from one of the best editors and teachers in the business. She pushed my writing to award-winning status.” – Dreda Say Mitchell, Author of Running Hot.
One book I have read about creative writing. Buying this book ages ago, its methods and techniques are still useful to me. This book for dummies outlines all the forms of creative writing and tells you everything else you need to know. This is a must read for any writer of fiction or non-fiction in any genre. A very comprehensive and relevant book with both width and depth. One writing resource that is interesting to any kind of writer.
Contents at a Glance:
- Introduction
- Part 1: Getting Started
- Chapter 1: You and Your Writing
- Chapter 2: Getting into the Write Mind
- Chapter 3: Finding Material to Work With
- Part II: Introducing the Elements of Creative Writing
- Chapter 4: Creating Characters
- Chapter 5: Discovering Dialogue
- Chapter 6: Choosing a Narrator
- Chapter 7: Describing your World
- Chapter 8: Plotting your Way
- Chapter 9: Creating Structure
- Chapter 10: Rewriting and Editing
- Part III: Writing Fiction
- Chapter 11: When Less is More: Crafting short stories
- Chapter 12: Writing the Novel
- Chapter 13: Once Upon a Time: Writing for Children
- Chapter 14: Penning Plays
- Chapter 15: Writing Screenplays
- Chapter 16: Rhymes and Reasons
- Part IV: Exploring Non-fiction
- Chapter 17: Breaking into journalism
- Chapter 18: Writing from Life
- Chapter 19: Crafting narrative non fiction
- Chapter 20: Travel Writing
- Chapter 21: All about Blogging
- Part V: Finding an Audience
- Chapter 22: Finding Professionals to Publish your book
- Chapter 23: Becoming a Professional
- Part VI: The Part of Tens
- Chapter 24: Ten Top Tips for Writers
- Chapter 25: Ten Ways to get Noticed
- Chapter 26: Ten Pieces of Writing to Inspire you
With 364 pages in total, you can read it from the start or in pieces of information you need. Once you finish this book you might get the other two in the collection. Creative Writing Exercises For Dummies and Writing a Novel and Getting Published for Dummies. One of these dummie writing books will get you motivated to start and to come back to creative writing. Once a year I get this book out to freshen up different parts of my writing skills.
It is okay. While explaining many topics of writing there was much room for more. Even though it gave you more than enough sensible suggestions and examples. It gives you more than enough of an understanding where you will be able to start a language of writing. A toolkit of most methods used in writing. I recommend this book to everyone who needs/wants different types of learning methods for the craft of fiction and non-fiction writing.
6.79/10
Here is some links to my book for sale: