Tuesday 25 October 2011

250 Things You Should Know About Writing by Chuck Wendig

Finally a book review for you all guys. Well...kinda. Yeah, I've been very very lazy with the review lately. My BAD. :)





250 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WRITING is a booze-soaked, profanity-brined, Zen-lacquered look at the craft and art of writing, one list of “25 Things” at a time.

Featured within this book are the essays “25 Things You Should Know About…”

…Being A Writer, Writing A Novel, Writing A Screenplay, Writing A F**king Sentence, Storytelling, Character, Plot, Dialogue, Description, Editing/Revising, and finally, Getting Published.

(And yes, that’s actually 11 lists, which means the book actually has *275* things you should know about writing, but let’s be honest, 250 sounds much cooler. Let’s just go ahead and call that, “25 bonus tips,” shall we? Boom. Value added.)

The book features sections such as:

“The Transubstantiation of Trope,” “Why Bad Decisions Are A Good Decision,” “Nobody Sees Themselves As A Supporting Character,” "I Want To Buy The Semi-Colon A Private Sex Island," and “Plot Is Promise.”

Contained within are things you should know about plot holes, self-publishing versus legacy publishing, "on-the-nose" dialogue, story versus plot, metaphors, copy-editing, killing darlings with a claw hammer, cursing like an undead pirate, and generally being a cranky and irreverent creative type.




This is another fun read. This was kinda linked to my NaNoWriMo reading. I read a ‘25 things’ list on the authors website and thought I would check out the cheapest of his books at the same time.


And I will say that this was an enjoyable and often giggle worthy little book. It is a collection of 10, ’25 things lists’ that the author has (I assume) posted on his blog.

One thing that I did find a little disappointing is the language throughout the book and also the authors mind seems to be focused on sex a heck of a lot *shrug*. Despite this though the pages are full of useful writing advice but be warned the language is a bit…salty.

The author’s site is here if you want to check out the posts and his writing.



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1 comment:

  1. Salty? That's one way to put it! It's a bit distasteful, but it's definitely memorable. I haven't read the book, but I learned a lot from the blog. I hope it helps you with NaNoWriMo!

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