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caitlinxreads's review against another edition
2.0
WARNING: THIS BOOK OF ESSAYS CONTAINS MANY, MANY SPOILERS FOR CLASSIC NOVELS!
This barely had advice, it was basically just about authors this author loves and hmwhy they are awesome (with many spoilers). There is little relevant advice and I found myself falling asleep while trying to read this.
This barely had advice, it was basically just about authors this author loves and hmwhy they are awesome (with many spoilers). There is little relevant advice and I found myself falling asleep while trying to read this.
mckaylaboyd's review against another edition
3.0
I'm not quite sure the best way to rate books like this yet but I found that I enjoyed the book and I found it to be an excellent resource for creating discussion in class.
I liked especially that the author used more than the knowledge of her own skills but turned to famous writers and cited their mastery in ways that were unique to me. Livesey's ideas didn't feel like cliche writing advice, which was refreshing.
That being said, if this was just a resource for myself without the discussions from my class, I don't know if the ideas could turn into something I could practice. They all seemed a bit vague when it came to application or experimenting. And some ideas, especially anti-fiction, felt underdeveloped and even with m whole course chiming in, we couldn't really get to the heart of what the advice meant.
I liked especially that the author used more than the knowledge of her own skills but turned to famous writers and cited their mastery in ways that were unique to me. Livesey's ideas didn't feel like cliche writing advice, which was refreshing.
That being said, if this was just a resource for myself without the discussions from my class, I don't know if the ideas could turn into something I could practice. They all seemed a bit vague when it came to application or experimenting. And some ideas, especially anti-fiction, felt underdeveloped and even with m whole course chiming in, we couldn't really get to the heart of what the advice meant.
scostner's review against another edition
3.0
Author Margot Livesey shares the lessons she has learned about being a writer in this essay collection. Each section begins with a quote from a famous author such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Epicurus, or George Herbert. She also uses examples from well-known pieces of literature to illustrate her points. Other writers might have chosen to only use their own work as the examples, but Livesey has chosen to refer to works that are widely known and often considered classics as well as pulling from her own writing. It makes an interesting balance and shows how the principles of writing apply across generations of writing past and present.
There is humor and honest self criticism. Talking about a novel she attempted to write and the problems she encountered, Livesey identifies one issue as her "failure to understand that irrelevance is a sin." She compares Aristotle's claim that "All human happiness and misery takes the form of action," with the advice "Show don't tell." Everything from dialogue, setting, characters, plot - any of the pieces that go together to create a piece of writing that speaks to readers - are discussed and examples are shown and analyzed.
A useful book to read for any aspiring writer or anyone interested in the craft from the perspective of an informed reader. I read an e-book provided by the publisher through NetGalley.
There is humor and honest self criticism. Talking about a novel she attempted to write and the problems she encountered, Livesey identifies one issue as her "failure to understand that irrelevance is a sin." She compares Aristotle's claim that "All human happiness and misery takes the form of action," with the advice "Show don't tell." Everything from dialogue, setting, characters, plot - any of the pieces that go together to create a piece of writing that speaks to readers - are discussed and examples are shown and analyzed.
A useful book to read for any aspiring writer or anyone interested in the craft from the perspective of an informed reader. I read an e-book provided by the publisher through NetGalley.
sdgibson's review against another edition
5.0
I've used Livesey's essay collection as a textbook in a college-level novella writing class. Students liked it. The essays are about what specific writers teach in the course of their writing; so, in writing her essays Livesey models reading fiction to discover the techniques by which fiction is made. She ends several of her essays, including the one on Shakespeare, with a specific list of techniques he used. It's easy to encourage students to try them. Highly recommended for careful readers interested in learning about writing fiction.
meganelise's review against another edition
5.0
One of the best craft books I have read, Livesey takes us on little journeys into different authors and elements of craft, sharing from her own experiences. It is so comforting to hear an author share how they struggle and learn to write better, and Livesey’s writing makes me feel like I’m in a cozy seminar room being told something exciting and honest and beautiful all at once. Highly recommend to fellow writers.
upnorth's review
5.0
Chosen to read for paid review elsewhere -- so I'll just say, I wish I'd read this 20 years ago. It's a practical experienced thoughtful take on the mechanics of writing good literary fiction for publication, particularly novels. She walks through many well-known great stories and novels (Cheever, Austen, Forster, Jane Smiley) and offers clear ways of thinking about how various approaches and techniques do or don't work in various examples, never degenerating into formulas or bulleted lists.
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