Science Fiction & Fantasy author
I have posted about many of the books I consider useful. So this post is sort of a gathering of those posts in one place. Now you don’t have to search about for them.
Grammar and revision:
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
A Writer’s Reference
Spell Friendly Dictionaries
Creative inspiration:
A Writer’s Book of Days
Lu Chi’s Wen Fu
Lu Chi’s Wen Fu 2
The Worst Case Scenario
Good books to read:
The Catcher in the Rye
Tale of Two Cities
You’ve Got to Read This
You’ve Got To Read This is an anthology supplying short stories that are the favorite reads of some of the finest writers of the 20th century. Every writer should be reading, especially the most exemplary works of well-written prose. “Goodbye, My Brother” by John Cheever is one of my favorites due to the family dynamics it portrays with simple, straightforward narration, and it is introduced by Allan Gurganus.
This book, though not a recent publication, is a great start for the writers looking to learn by reading. The short introductions given by the author that selected each piece adds to the reading of each work. Not only do I get to read a great short story, but I also get to understood what drew the accomplished writer to be moved by the work and name it as one of his or her favorites.
So track down this text and sit down for that occasional short read that you can examine both for the writing skill itself as well as for what an establish writer might find worthwhile in it.
As said in Lu Chi’s Wen Fu, “When cutting an axe handle with an axe,
surely the model is at hand.”
There is a reason why writers must read from the genre that they wish to write in. They must know what others are producing and most importantly how they are going about it. It is necessary to examine the art to grow into the artist, to watch the masters to learn to master the craft.
Lu Chi said it best.
When cutting an axe handle with an axe,
surely the model is at hand.
(Lu Chi’s Wen Fu: The Art of Writing, Translated by Sam Hill)
These words are so apropos. It is not the plot, the setting or the characters used. It is how the plot is imbedded in the story and how the characters are designed and put into motion. It is the choice of the right word and the reason why it is right. It is the reader crying even when the character’s eyes are dry.
Writers must apprentice themselves to the masters. We must look closely in the same manner that the jeweler puts on his magnifying lens so he can evaluate the emerald and its unique setting. Do the same as the farmer who runs the soil through her hands, or the wine maker sniffs the wine. We must understand the process and product of the art of writing. We must read closely the models at hand.
Every writer, whether he or she is a writer of fiction or non-fiction, journalist or reviewer, must spell correctly. As a teacher I am routinely asked by my students how to spell a word they want to use in their writing. I always point at the dictionary. I do understand the issue of getting a big book of words and sifting through it for the correct spelling and that they find this tedious, especially when they know I can spell the word for them much quicker.
This is why I thoroughly recommend every writer, from student to pseudo-professional to professional consider having a Webster’s Instant Word Guide or The Word Book III from Houghton Mifflin. They do not contain definitions but are directed at spelling alone. The majority of people who want to spell a word are not confused about its meaning. So a speller’s word book, such as the two listed above, is ideal. And they are small, roughly 4″ x 5 1/2″.
They are compact, to the point, easy to navigate, and they supply one crucial component: If there could be a chance of confusion with another word, both are supplied with an extremely short definition (usually one word) next to the confused alternative, so the writer can make an informed decision about which is the correct one to use and spell appropriately.
Just to add useful to convenient and the critical low “overwhelming” factor, both these books also offer conversion tables for weights and measures, spelling rules, punctuation and abbreviations sections.
I actually have both of these books. One I keep at school on my desk and the other at home. I introduce my new students to them every year. And though it is never a majority, many of them do inform me at some point in the year that they have purchased one.
Last word on this: spelling is crucial in any public writing forum. This is a non-tedious, easy-to-use fix for the problem. It is even quicker than an iPhone dictionary ap and does the one thing wordprocessing program dictionaries don’t do: provide you with the option of the “other word.”
When I was in college, one of the books a professor required we purchase was Lu Chi’s Wen Fu. Just reading the introduction convinced me this was a book for me. The book is written in poetry, but reads like a guide you climbed to the top of a mountain to sit with in silence, growing knowledgeable just through association. Though it is geared toward the poet, any writer can gain insight from it.
“The poet stands at the center of the universe
contemplating the enigma,
drawing sustenance
from masterpieces of the past. (“The Early Motion” lines 1-4)
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| Lu Chi’s Wen Fu |
This simple book walks the writer through all the agonies of creation, the selection of the right word, bright epiphanies and the moments of satisfaction. Frequently, it reminds the reader that contemplation and study of master works is the road to writing well. I remember reading this book and nodding in agreement with each line. I also recall finding every time the professor brought this book into discussion in class that I knew what he was saying almost before the words left his mouth. There was an instant connection to the professor’s words, this little book and my own understanding of the art of writing, however much a novice I was (and will always be as we are forever evolving in this craft).
If you are a writer, get this book. Read it in small bits. Breath it. Contemplate it and then read the masters. Then read the book again, whole, part, in sequence, out of order. Grab snatches of it and return to it often. Each reading is a new understanding, a new breath in writing.
I am reading Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey and after the opening pages, which were a bit slow, I found myself striding along with the Russetts, up-and-coming red-hue percepted individuals. Now about 100 pages in, I am amazed how this world is created and wrapped about the perception of color, both true colors and artificial. The art of world building is one I am still learning, but reading Shades of Grey as a resource alone is fun, though I am drawn by the story as well.
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| shades of red on grey |
Fforde has built these characters who demonstrate the perception of color in every aspect of their behavior, desires, relationships, social status and careers. Imagining the scope of his plan before he even began writing is daunting. This is the first time I have read this book, and I doubt it will be the last. Usually as a reader, I just dive into the story head first, don’t even worry about finding nearby exit routes, confirming there are handrails, checking for a lifeguard or preparing snacks or making a quick visit to the restroom. I won’t come up for air until my eyes won’t stay open, my stomach won’t stop growling even when I growl back at it or I am having to cross my legs. I am a full on reader. But Shades of Grey makes me, the writer, keep sitting back and wondering how he pulled this all together with just one brain. That is not to say I am pulled out of the story, for I am not. But this other side of me is pulled just as inextricably.
I started Shades of Grey a couple of months ago and found those first pages so sloggy that I turned to two other books and read them before returning to this one just a few days ago. What is funny is that only a few pages later I was hooked. It’s like when a person goes to the doctor for a pain she has been suffering through for weeks and finally just as she has has enough and is sitting in the doctor’s office, she starts feeling better. That is how I feel: if I had only read five more pages, I would have been enthralled.
Now I don’t want to look at another book until I have finished this one
and then I may just read it again to let my writer self get a more focused
view of what Fforde did with this story. It makes me want to quote the
witch of the west: What a world, what a world! But with approbation
rather than frustration.