Extras: Craft Books You Can (mostly) Skip
More Stuff, because I like you people
Every time I hit a new milestone, I write an Extras column as a thank you to all of you for subscribing and reading.
Like every writer, I have a shelf full of craft books that are mostly unread.
Most of these were collected when I was a newer writer, because someone told me that I totally had to read some book and so I would buy it hoping that it contained the magic spell that would turn me into a writer.
I’d open each one of them with full intention of reading them, and perhaps even highlighting them and taking notes, and maybe even memorizing some quotes so I could appear educated in a literary crowd, but most of the time, the magic spell I was hoping for would not be within the first two pages and I would lose interest.
On occasion, though, I would persevere, only to discover that not only was there no magic spell, but often I was reading a book that could have been an essay. Perhaps even a listicle.
So because I like you people, and also because I discovered the magic of listening to audiobooks at 1.75 speed, I herein present the list of craft books you (mostly) need not bother with, because seriously, who has time?
I’m also probably going to piss some people off by naming their favourite craft book, so please, go ahead and comment, tell me why I’ve completely misunderstood the brilliance of this book, it’s good from my engagement.
Stephen King, On Writing
People love this book, and will tell you that it’s the best book on writing and that everyone should read it, but truthfully, I was overwhelmed with how underwhelming it is.
There’s no spectacular insight in this book, nothing that you probably don’t already know as a writer.
People who love this book simply happened to read it right at the very beginning of discovering that they were a writer, and so they were beyond amazed with all the not particularly new stuff on writing they learned, like… that you need to write regularly and deal with rejection and …. I don’t even remember, I read this book a number of years ago and found the whole thing very forgettable, beyond thinking that Tabitha King is the real hero of this story for rescuing Carrie from the wastebasket and emotionally labouring the book into existence.
Unless you’re a massive Stephen King fan (in which case you’ve already read this one and are already in vehement disagreement with me), or you’re at the very, very beginning of your writing journey, you can skip this one entirely.
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Just read the chapter “Shitty First Drafts.”
This is essential reading for a writer. If you haven’t read it already, you probably already know the deal about writing shitty first drafts, but go ahead and read the one chapter anyway. Pull it off the library shelf, read this one chapter still standing by the shelf, and put it back in its place. You will be charmed by her humour and empathy and maybe even feel inspired to write your own shitty first draft.
If you have no idea why I’m talking about shitty first drafts, you should pick up Stephen King’s book; you will probably love it and think it’s genius, the best book on writing ever.
Don’t worry about reading any more of Bird by Bird than this. It’s still entertaining and empathetic, but nothing in there will do any more for you than “Shitty First Drafts.”
Blake Synder, Save the Cat
There are about ten useful pages in this entire book, and those are the ten where he breaks down what all the elements of 3-Act structure are—and there are versions of this all over the internet anyway.
If you really want to get it straight from the source, take this book out from the library, photocopy those ten pages, return it so that someone else can copy those ten pages.
There’s also a Save The Cat Writes A Novel by someone else, which I haven’t bothered to read, but it’s pretty much the same deal. There are about a million different ways to describe the 3-Act structure, but it’s all essentially the same concept with slightly different words.
I recently said a whole lot more on structure, but if you are looking for a guide to 3-Act structure, it’s as good as any. Don’t get too fussed by the exact details—it’s written for screenwriters anyway—but use it to understand the general concept and to have some vocabulary for talking about structure.
By no means must you use this to structure your novel, and feel free to be offended by the idea that it seems so formulaic, but given that many, many novels stick to this formula, and that it’s so prevalent as a story structure in our culture, you may as well get a handle on it, but feel free to modify and play around with it as needed by your particular story.
As a general caution though, if you’re using this as a way to plan your novel so that it’s easier to write, you’re assuming there is a good way to make novels are easy to write. I wrote more about that here
Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
I must have read this one at the exact right time, because I really liked it.
This is not a book about craft or encouragement or advice. At least, not directly anyway.
Rather, it’s the voice of your wise and slightly cuckoo writing friend, who can commiserate with you on the insanity of this thing, and in doing so, gently remind you that yes, this self-doubt and avoidance is perfectly normal, and yes, you have to be brave, and yes, this is what it is to be a writer.
No matter how terrible you feel, Annie Dillard is with you.
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
I also really like this one, but on the other hand, I can summarize the entire book by repeating the rules for free writing, which is somewhere near the beginning of the book: 1) Keep the hand moving. 2) Don’t Edit. 3) Lose Control. 4) Go for the jugular. Done. That is the whole book.
You need to write. Don’t think, don’t worry, don’t correct your grammar, don’t reword, don’t appease that inner perfectionist, and go big, go bold, go all out there. Open the door to your creative world and don’t judge what emerges.
The rest of the book expands on this idea a little bit, goes into the relationship between Zen mediation and freewriting, and has little stories about Natalie. These can be fun to dip into, and even kind of inspirational, but if you’re reading steadily looking for more concrete instruction, you aren’t going to find much after you’ve learned about freewriting regularly.
Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic
I’m probably going to get in trouble with this one. Truthfully, I like and even agree with a lot of what Elizabeth Gilbert says, but I have a so many big problems with how she says it.
Liz Gilbert comes to writing from a particular perspective of a white lady whose was raised to follow her passions, and then worked in writing for magazines for a long time before writing books and becoming wildly successful. This approach to writing success is much more fraught now, but you'd never know it from Liz. Also, she’s way too damn cheerful and upbeat.
The big issue I have is that she writes Big Magic as if her perspective is universal.
The problem with that is that it makes it easy for writers to feel like they’re doing something wrong, when no, the only thing wrong is that they aren't Liz Gilbert.
For example, there was a line in Big Magic that was to the effect “If you truly love something, you won’t mind the shit sandwich.” Written as a universal declarative, newer writers are likely to take those extra-shitty days are evidence that they don’t love writing enough and therefore don’t deserve to write…. after all, Liz Gilbert says so, and who are they to question her?
But the reality is, yes, there is a lot of shit sandwich that goes along with a writing life, but also a lot of reward that comes with engaging creatively, in feeding that part of your soul that hungers to do this. And there is enormous value in that, which hopefully balances the shit sandwich bits. Which is probably what Liz Gilbert means, but not what she says.
I found that she brushes by life issues that people might struggle with or need to give up as though these are small obstacles, possibly because she gives no evidence of having to deal with significant obstacles in trying to balance her writing life and her life-life. For me, that’s been the biggest struggle in my writing life, so while it’s cool for Liz Gilbert to explain that it’s totally possible to write and be a parent because Toni Morrison managed it by waking before dawn to write before the kids woke up, setting up a comparison between the me and Toni Morrison isn’t super-useful. I'm never going to wake up earlier. It’s not like I’ve never heard the advice “just get up earlier” before and haven’t already told it to fuck off. Also, Toni Morrison never had to monitor her child’s YouTube use. Toni Morrison’s kids grew up in the GenX era of benign neglect. And frankly Toni Morrison wouldn’t expect anyone to do things exactly as she does, so like, why are you telling me about Toni Morrison, Liz?
Overall, though, I’d have liked this better if Liz Gilbert didn’t magically have the ‘correct’ perspective on everything hard all the way through her writing life, and like, actually struggled through stuff and talked about her struggles. Because she makes it sound easy, and that makes it sound like any sign of struggle is a sign of doing it wrong, and that deeply irritates me.
In any case, if cheerful, hardworking, no-mistakes, upbeat writing advice is not your thing, skip this one. And if that is your thing, I really don’t understand why you read this newsletter.
Francine Prose - Reading Like A Writer
For years, I had recommended this book—noting that I hadn’t read beyond the first chapter—to writers who wanted to learn how to do a close read of other people’s work for craft, and to that end, I must apologize to everyone who took that advice. This isn’t the book that will teach you how to do that.
There is a lot of good stuff in here about close reading on the sentence level. And there are also about a trillion examples of from texts that Francine Prose loves (mostly your classic writing canon stuff) wherein she waxes lyrically about the fine details of it all, and you can tell she is absolutely captivated by these tiny observations. But this makes it a dry read for me, and I have never been so grateful for audiobooks and being able to whip through this on double-time.
But for the bigger questions about structure and narrative, or how the writers’ craft choices highlight their overall intention for the story, the things that I think most writers I’ve encountered are trying to learn, there isn’t really anything here. It’s kind of skipped over as if it is something you must surely know it already.
If you’re looking for that micro-level stuff, there are about a zillion examples in here, but if you’re trying to figure out how to take all these lovely sentences and construct them into a story…. skip this one.
Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist
This one had two major advantages over most craft books. 1) It’s short. 2) There are pictures. This was smart; there’s very little repetition, so rather forcing the reader to slog through a book that should have been an essay, it’s simply a short book.
This is also a rare book that addresses the whole question of social media and what to do with it, and also the looks at the question of money in a reasonably realistic way, since it’s been a long time since you could eke out an existence writing short stories like Stephen King.
Being short, it doesn’t get into the minutia of any of these topics, but then again, this is more a set of good guidelines for navigating a creative life than a sent of instructions.
There are more craft books, of course, but this was all I could stomach. Perhaps another time.
What say you, Reader? Disagree? Have books you read and hated? Ones you loved? Please warn us accordingly so we may all save time.
I would add to this list Haruki Murakami's Novelist as a Vocation. I can summarize the book:
He woke up one day, quit everything he had going for him in his life, and decided to be a bestselling author despite never having written. It worked. His routine is : write for 8 hours. Go running. Do not disturb.
Ta da.
Thank you for this! I read Big Magic and didn’t hate it as badly as I feared I would—the idea of giving yourself permission hit me at a good time—but I find her persona really difficult to take.
So much of craft and advice seems like finding what works for where you are. It makes sense that I’m not where I was 25 years ago but I hadn’t verbalized it. So thanks!