Pete Sutton's Blog, page 11

Writing about writing about writing Review 3

3rd in an intermittent series of reviewing my writing books, with an aim of reducing how many I have. (4th really but the on and off the shelves post didn’t include any reviews)

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Exercises In Style by Raymond Quineau

This is an odd little book. On a crowded bus at midday, the narrator observes one man accusing another of jostling him. When a seat is vacated, the first man takes it. Later, in another part of town, the man is spotted again, while being advised by a friend to have another button sewn onto his overcoat. Queneau retells this unremarkable tale ninety-nine times in a variety of styles ranging from Cockney to Sonnet to Mathematical formula.

I’m not sure it’s a book I’ll refer to a lot – but it is very short so it might remain on the shelf. A decision I’ll review at the end of this process (if this testing ever has an end – as no doubt more books about writing will come into the house and the shelf will become overstuffed despite my efforts.)

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Contemporary Essays In Style edited by Love and Payne

This is a real mixed (Aeolus) bag. Within are such luminaries as Winston Weathers (more on him anon) and Francis Christensen – Author of The New Rhetoric. It is split into 3 (rhetoric, linguistics and criticism) and although there’s some good stuff in here (Weathers’s The Rhetoric of the Series for example) there’s a lot in here that just didn’t speak to me. So one for the discard pile.

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The Anatomy Of Prose by Majorie Boulton

This was much better. Boulton, a teacher, wrote a whole series of books with the title ‘The Anatomy of.’ This one is the companion to The Anatomy of Poetry. It’s well-written, if a little schoolmarmy, but the ground is better covered by Winston Weathers’s book (see below) She wrote the book because she couldn’t find a good one on the subject to give to her students. If you can’t get hold of the Weathers this one is a good substitute.

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On Writing Well by William Zinsser

This is a real classic and is a good basic introduction to style and the various non-fiction genres (like memoir, science writing etc.) I bet most writers have read this one. The first 50 pages and the last two chapters are the most useful but in the middle of that are almost 200 pages on the various non-fiction genres. Not that these are not useful – but if I was going to write a memoir and wanted advice on how to do so I’d probably buy a book about writing memoirs rather than read a basic introduction chapter here. So, like the Boulton, I’m glad I read it – but it’s not one (for me) to refer back to often. So another for the discard pile.

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The Strategy Of Style by Weathers and Winchester

In finding the cover to upload I note that this book is over £80 on Abebooks. (The later edition – The New Strategy of Style – is £30+)

I hate it when writing books advise you to buy an old out of print and hard to get hold of book. But basically that’s what I’ve done isn’t it? Sorry. For my money (and I bought this for less than £5 several years back) this is a better nuts and bolts (for non-fiction composition mainly) than most of the other books I’ve read on the subject (including the ones above.) Weathers and Winchester: “To be a good writer, you must master as many of the principles and techniques of composition as you can.”

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Style by Joseph M Williams

I note that there is an updated version of this book with a slightly different title, from a different publisher which is more expensive. I’ve not read that new version so can’t say if it’s worth the money (over £40 on Amazon)

If the Weathers is a nuts and bolts of how to compose a piece of prose then this is a philosophical companion. Williams’s main concern is for the reader and therefore offers the writer a method of understanding why bad writing is bad, how readers read and why style guides are just that – guides, not a list of unbreakable rules. Between this, Strunk & White and Weathers you’d have all the tools to write well I think.

As well as the above I learned a lot about good writing, i.e. writing as communication, from The Copyeditors Handbook. Which is a reference book I know I don’t need to put to the test as I have referred to it plenty of times in my editorial career.

Next time round I’ll be staying in the How to English category, but with books that are perhaps on the boundaries. Mark Forsyth’s The Elements of Eloquence and Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several Short Sentences About Writing.

After that I’ll be making a detour into poetry. Stay tuned for that – I’ve had a couple of poems published but in no way would I ever describe myself as a poet – or even someone who understands poetry. I do feel that the basics of poetry – how the voice works, word sounds and rhythms etc. can teach you a lot about how to write prose.

After that I’ll be tackling the large number of books I have about how to write fiction…

Drop a comment with your favourite writing book or tip here or email me via the Contact page. If you’re a publisher or Indie Author and would like me to review your writing book drop me a line!

Half way through the year that feels like a decade

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Well the first half of the year was pretty eventful.

I gave myself a challenge this year to try not buy any books and reduce the TBR. That’s been going pretty well, but mainly because I’ve not been to any bookshops or events for the last 4 months!

So far this year I’ve read 79 books, 19 of them entered the house in 2020 (ARCs mainly but I have been naughty and bought a couple of books) as long as I don’t add any books to the TBR I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something this year. So far, so good.

Books I’ve read in the first half that I’d recommend:

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Obabakoak by the Basque writer Bernado Atxaga – a mosaic novel and meditation on the nature of story

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Horse Destroys the Universe by Cyriak Harris – A fun near future dystopian romp

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The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams – Coming out very soon now, this is a novel about dictionary making, fake words, 19th Century shenanigans, adventure! Romance! It’s great

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Consider This by Chuck Palahniuk OK yeah it’s another writing book – but one I enjoyed immensely

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The Price You Pay by Aiden Truhan This is modern, whip-smart, an unusual voice and a lot of fun

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The Book of Koli by Mike Carey – The first book in a new series, set in a future world where nature has become inimical to man. I’m not a big fan of series usually but this entertained and set me to wanting the next book.

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The Girl From A Thousand Fathoms by Dave Gullen – you can see my review of this here

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Eden by Tim Lebbon Another near future book where nature has taken against us but quite different from Koli. A bit of a page turner this one, you’ll feel wrung out after reading, like you’ve been for a long run – with something hot on your heels.

Writing about writing about writing – on and off the shelves

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I have a number of books spread over the shelves that are written by authors I have fiction books from. I don’t plan to put these to the test. I’ve previously read them and placed them on the shelves. Some of these are collected non-fiction or essays which may include writing advice. Some are writing advice books. But in common they are by authors I generally collect anyway.

I also have a large discard pile (I’ve been putting a box of books outside the house for people to help themselves. Pre-Covid I’d take a bag of books to the charity shop round the corner as soon as it was full. I think I need to do an online version of that soon)

So for a sense of completeness, I’ve listed both here. (Note that most of the discard pile have come from second-hand shops/Abebooks. When you read a writing advice book they often refer to other writing advice books and that often leads to purchases!)

On a bit of a tangent – this year my challenge to myself was to not buy any books. My TBR is massive. You’d think this was easier this year than most other years with the whole Covid thing. But I’ve allowed myself a couple of purchases of books by friends – you have to support your friends, especially right now!

You can easily see from this post that when I say I have too many writing books I’m really not exaggerating…

I don’t plan on writing anything about these books – but drop me a comment if you’d like to know something about any of them. And, as usual, if you’re an indie author or a publisher and would like me to review a writing book drop me a line.

Books spread on the shelves already

in no particular order

Orhan Pamuk – The Naive And Sentimental Novelist

Neil Gaiman – The View From The Cheap Seats

Angela Carter – Shaking A Leg

Terry Pratchett – A Slip Of The Keyboard

Virginia Wolf – A Room Of One’s Own

Ursula Le Guin – Steering The Craft (Excellent for intermediate writers, not a beginner’s book)

Ursula Le Guin – Dreams Must Explain Themselves

Jorge Luis Borges – The Craft Of Verse

Jorge Luis Borges – On Writing

Jorge Luis Borges – Total Non-Fiction Library

Jorge Luis Borges – Professor Borges

Cat Valente – Indistinguishable From Magic

Stephen King – On Writing (The classic – a memoir and writing advice. Worth reading)

George Orwell – Essays

Jeff VanderMeer – Booklife (Excellent advice for building a career as a writer)

Jeff VanderMeer – Wonderbook (If you’re a visual learner this is the writing book for you)

Jeff VanderMeer – Why Should I Cut Your Throat

Jeff VanderMeer – Monstrous Creatures

Thomas Ligotti – The Conspiracy Against The Human Race

Umberto Eco – On Literature

Umberto Eco – Six Walks In The Fiction Woods

Italo Calvino – Why Read The Classics

Italo Calvino – Six Memos To The New Millenium

Douglas Adams – The Salmon Of Doubt

Tom Bissell – Magic Hours

Alexander Chee – How To Write An Autobiographical Novel

Alan Garner – The Voice That Thunders

Javier Grillo Maxuarch – Shoot This One

Philip Pullman – Daemon Voices

Stephen Volk – Coffinmaker’s Blues

Discard Pile

Also in no particular order

Christopher Booker – The Seven Basic Plots (I can’t see myself re-reading this and it’s massive so an easy win for shelf space)

Gioia & Gwynn – The Art Of The Short Story (also massive)

Peter Selgin – 179 Ways To Save A Novel

Robie Macauley – Techniques In Fiction

John Freeman – Creative Writing

Kingsly Amis – The King’s English

Fairfax & Moate – The Way To Write

James McGreet – Before You Write Your Novel

David Marsh – For Who The Bell Tolls

Corner-Bryant & Price – On Editing

Fay Weldon – Why Will No-one Publish My Novel

Patricia Highsmith – Plotting & Writing Suspense Fiction

Joe Moran – First You Write A Sentence

Jane Smiley – 13 Ways Of Looking At A Novel (also huge so great space saver to discard)

Richard Cohen – How To Write Like Tolstoy

Jack Woodford – Trial & Error

John Yorke – Into The Woods

Gary Provost – 100 Ways To Improve Your Writing

Graves & Hodge – The Reader Over Your Shoulder

Donovan – 10 Core Practises For Better Writing

Carey – Mind The Stop (This is an excellent little book but the Gordon books on the same subject are better)

Writing about writing about writing Review 2

This is part of an ongoing series of posts. Part one is here and part two here

Sticking with books that are at a word and sentence level, I’ve read (sometimes scanned) the following books for review this time round:

The Complete Plain Words

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The edition I have is hardback, printed in 1986 bought from the Oxfam shop at the top of Park Street who have received a fair amount of money from my pocket over the years.

This is a venerable book, and I note that there is now a new and fully up to date version (as linked) which would be a better version to buy (see below). Ernest Gowers’s book was written for the civil service as an aim to improve their communications. The main thrust of the book is that communication should be clear and unencumbered by circumlocutions and long words (oops.) The choice of words and the handling of words are the two main topics. It has a good message but is mainly aimed at non-fiction and technical writers. If that’s you then definitely have it on your shelf. If not it might still be worth reading but I’m not sure it adds much to The Elements of Style (and the books below), except for lots of examples. Also, in reading the introduction to the modern version (on the Amazon ‘Look Inside’ in the prep of this post) it appears that previous editors who tackled updates to the original made some ‘interesting’ choices regarding the text (there is an example about homosexuals ruining the language that’s eyebrow-raising!). Gowers’s granddaughter has revised from the first edition and ignored the second and third editions. Along with Fowlers this is a reference book that might be useful but seldom referred after a full reading. So I’m clearing the space on the shelf and I might purchase the new Kindle edition.

Sin and Syntax and Vex, Hex, Smash Smooch from Constance Hale

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Sin and Syntax came from that same Oxfam bookshop and I enjoyed it so much at the first reading that I bought Hale’s other book Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch. Hales’s writing is direct and robust and she exhorts you to be the same. Sin and Syntax is, in my view, the better book. She starts with words, moves onto sentences and finishes on music (of English) – it starts: “Oh the sentence! The shuddering, sinuous, piquant, incandescent, delirious, sulking, strident possibilities of it all!” But soon settles down. “From this exploration you’ll emerge not only a more sharp-witted writer, but also a more attuned reader.”

For each part of speech she covers the Bones (the basic rules), the Flesh ( a lesson on writing), Cardinal Sins ( errors and ‘true’ transgressions) and Carnal Pleasures (an example of great writing) This is an excellent style guide for using words at the sentence level and one that’s a pleasure to read. So it stays on the shelf.

I got less from Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch the premise of which is that good writing is all about the verb (which is an argument that slightly contradicts her previous book). It’s like she took the chapter in Sin and Syntax on verbs and inflated it to book length. She’s added a lot of info not in the previous book of course but in expanding she’s diluted. However it is a boot camp for putting your verbs through their paces and does have some useful reference material in it. I’m not going to get rid of it just yet.

I still have some more style books to put to the test before moving beyond How to English to the Nuts & Bolts of just what is fiction and how do you do it anyway? So there’ll definitely be a Review 3 for How to English. (Probably even a 4 and maybe more – as I have several that definitely fit this category and a couple that are between categories.) Did I mention I have too many writing books?

Drop a comment with your favourite writing book or tip here or email me via the Contact page. If you’re a publisher or Indie Author and would like me to review your writing book drop me a line!

Real Writers

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Imposter Syndrome – insidious isn’t it?

I posted on Twitter that I wasn’t feeling like a ‘real writer’ so was pondering a post on imposter syndrome and got some nice advice from the lovely people of Twitter.

More than one person sent me this:

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The lovely Frances Hardinge who I once had the pleasure of interviewing replied with this:

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And a number of people reassured me that I was in fact a writer

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Which was lovely.

But why do we suffer from Imposter’s Syndrome? There’s a LOT of info out there and some nice stories from many famous people who have suffered themselves from imposter syndrome. I like Neil Gaiman’s story for example.

But the feeling persists. But it’s comforting to know that it’s usual. My ‘Pete W Sutton’ Bookshelf has around 30 books on it – 2 novels, 1 short story collection, several books I’ve edited and comp copies of anthologies I have stories in. I need to remind myself of that occasionally. There does seem to be a link between writing and what some people call Brain Weasels and I’d love to know if it’s correlation or causation. But absent an answer I’ll just have to learn to fight them off!

drop me a comment if you’ve suffered from Imposter Syndrome and how you’ve defeated it (or need a cheerleader to help you fight it)

The Girl from a Thousand Fathoms – Review

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Amazon blurb – “Tim Wassiter, P.I. isn’t a cynical old-school detective with a bottle in the desk, he’s the new-age version with chickens, tea – and a little bit of magic. His ex-partner scoffs, the old lady down the road just wants him to find her missing cat, but Tim knows that magic works. He’s seen the proof and he’s learning to use it to solve crimes.

Money’s tight but now he has his first real case. But what sounds like easy money isn’t as simple as it seems. The mysterious woman who hired him has dangerous friends and they’re rapidly losing patience. Tim needs to discover what’s really going on, and fast. Soon there’s an even more mysterious woman, a series of increasingly strange events, and a great many more cats.

As things get more violent, more bewildering and more utterly weird, Tim discovers that this case goes far deeper than he could ever have imagined. Everything is connected, even the past and the future, and everyone is looking for a girl who almost certainly does not exist.

And magic isn’t just real, it’s probably going to get him killed.”

You know that feeling, when you read a book, that you know the writer has arrived? For some it’s with their first book (e.g. Stephen King and Carrie) for others it’s a third, fourth or even later book and for some it never happens. For Gullen I think this is the book. It feels like a more emphatic expression of his voice. I’ve enjoyed plenty of his work before but this felt like a stronger, more in focus work. If it were a whisky it’d be cask strength.

There are cats (a great many cats,) a mermaid, a Babylonian mathematician, the magic of numbers, a PI who doesn’t even have a bottle of whisky in his filing cabinet, dangerous women, climate change, witches, adventure on and below the high seas and lots, lots more. Gullen draws from the same well as Pratchett and Adams (think Good Omens and Dirk Gently but at a tangent) but in as unique a voice as theirs.

He spins a lot of plates in this and at first they seem to be plates from different kitchens and impossible to match but like a master artist he draws the disparate elements together so that they make a pleasing whole in a pattern that is both unexpected and yet wholly inevitable. I’m impressed (as I always am when other people can make plotting seem effortless as it takes me a lot of work) and eagerly wait to see what Gullen does next.

You can find out more about the author at his website here and buy the novel from Amazon here

Writing about writing about writing review 1

As I explained in this blog post on Wednesday my writing books have outgrown the shelf above my desk (and my fiction and non-fiction shelves are already groaning) so I need to do a cull. I’m reviewing/re-reading them (which will take some time) and the first three (yes I read 3 books yesterday, but they’re all very short) are Elements of Style by Strunk & White, The Transitive Vampire and The Well-Tempered Sentence I’ve added links to the versions I have, I note that there are other (and sometimes newer) versions available.

The first version of Elements of Style I bought didn’t have E B White’s essay (An Approach to Style) in and I’d recommend that you purchase a copy with that in (which I replaced my original with.) I have the fourth edition on my shelf.

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“The beginner should approach style warily, realizing it is an expression of self…”

There are five parts to “the little book” (as White reports it was called on campus) which include rules of usage (my version has 10, other versions may have less), principles of composition, matters of form, commonly misused words and phrases and an addition added by White, some 30 years after being taught by Strunk, in the above mentioned essay.

The advice is presented as proscription but White softens it in the introduction to make it clear that he considers it to be suggestion. And in most cases the suggestions are sound – implementing them leads to good writing.

It’s a quick read (an hour or so) although quite dry.

Karen Gordon’s two little books are an introduction to punctuation and an introduction to grammar. I see that both have newer, expanded, versions. Of course they don’t cover all uses and abuses of the two topics and I have reference works like Fowler’s and New Hart’s Rules for exhaustive reference (I have ebooks of both. For US markets you’d buy Chicago Manual of Style) I don’t aim on reading those because they’re purely reference and although there are people who read such things for pleasure, I’m not one of them!

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Anyway back to the Gordon books. I can’t remember who recommended them to me but I’m glad they did (thanks long ago book recommender!) Gordon has a much more engaging style than fusty old Strunk and I feel she’d be an interesting person to know. A few examples will show you why:

From the introduction to The Well-Tempered Sentence: “Oh I am so eager to entrap you within these pages.” An example of the exclamation mark in use: “Ouch! That feels good.” or from the Transitive Vampire: “If you nuzzle these pages with abandon, writing will lose its terror and your sentences their disarray.” They’re a pleasure and easy to read and cover all the basics. As a primer I can’t fault them.

These 3 retain their place on the shelf.

I have several other, longer, books on style I’ll now move onto and I’ll stick with the How to English class of books for now. Always useful to have a refresher.

Drop a comment with your favourite writing book or tip here or email me via the Contact page. If you’re a publisher or Indie Author and would like me to review your writing book drop me a line!

Writing about writing about writing*

This title comes from Tom Bissell’s excellent book Magic Hours and this idea is inspired by his essay of the same title.

As I explained in a previous post I seem to read a lot of writing advice books. However I am running out of shelf space and it’s about time I culled the ones I have. To do so I’m going to re-read them (this will take a while) and decide if it’s a ‘tool’ or not. i.e. is this book something I’ll refer to again.

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So what I’m going to do is review them here. I have a large shelf worth, and many more on Kindle, so this will be a regular feature. Or at least I aim it to be. Who knows maybe I’ll learn something. There are many more I’ve read and already discarded and there are great many more I’ve neither read, nor have. Potentially I’ll buy some more some day (who am I kidding? I’ll definitely buy some more some day.)

The idea to review them as I go along comes from another writing book: Booklife by Jeff VanderMeer. In it he explains about his leveraging reviewing Penguin’s Great Ideas series to gather material for Booklife. By reviewing the writing books as I go along I’ll be a) gathering my thoughts in a more formal way and b) generating material for this here website (and in a format that hopefully will be helpful for other writers.)

It’s also part of my current process of returning to basics. I wrote more whilst learning to write in 2013-2016 than I wrote in 2017-2020 after being published and supposedly knowing what I’m doing. I’ve been blocked for a long time, or at least felt blocked (I have written a novel since this time last year so maybe not *that* blocked) and I’ve felt the need to give myself a boot up the backside and stop procrastinating and start writing more regularly again. Writers write right?

There are many types of Writing manual (Bissell divides them into How To, Nuts & Bolts, Olympus, Golden Parachutes and in a category all by itself Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life (which I don’t have a copy of))

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How To English – Guides for how to craft a sentence. Nothing in these about character or story.

Nuts & Bolts – Creative writing workshops in book form

On Mount Olympus – The philosophy of writing & the writing life

Golden Parachutes – The business of writing (Bissell notes that most of this type of book are written by people who only write self-help books)

This arbitrary division will do to start with – there are subdivisions of course. In Nuts & Bolts there are genre books for example and there are books aimed at specific types of writing, be it non-fiction, poetry, scriptwriting etc. Part of the fun of this is going to be to assign the book to one of these categories (and make an argument as to why it’s there).

I’m going to start with one of the shortest on the shelf, and the one most writers have a copy of: Strunk & White’s Elements of Style

“Most books about writing are filled with bullshit.” Stephen King says in his own writing book On Writing (I do have a copy of that one – and it’s the first writing book I ever read.) Let’s see if he’s right.

Drop a comment with your favourite writing book or tip here or email me via the Contact page. If you’re a publisher or Indie Author and would like me to review your writing book drop me a line!

Is your corpse exquisite?

The rather marvellous Rexx Deane  gathered a group of authors together in an exercise to create a short story during lockdown. Each author had a few seconds and then passed to the next – I came near the end.

You can watch the whole thing here:

 

One door closes

It is with regret that I’ve found out that KGHH is now defunct. The people at the publisher are creating a new publishing entity (restructuring etc.) but as this will take some time and my books will not be available during that time with them I have asked for my rights back. (I’ll be checking my actual rights when it comes to end of contract etc.)

A Tiding of Magpies will have a new home once I have the rights back (I have an offer on it already) but Sick City Syndrome will be out of print and unavailable for the foreseeable. I have some hard copies of both so if you have been waiting there are a limited number so best get one while you still can!

I’m still working on The Certainty of Dust which is very close to submission copy. As it was going to be published by KGHH I now have to find a new home for it – and also for The Museum For Forgetting (Which is not yet submission ready anyway.)

My next project was going to be on spec anyway so this brings that process – of approaching agents/editors – a little sooner than planned.

This happens in publishing – I know a few people who struggled to get their rights back from imprints that folded so I know it won’t be overnight.

All the anthologies are still for sale and Seven Deadly Swords too. I shall be back with additional books soon!

It’s come at a strange time (obviously the Covid thing makes life very weird) while I’m close to completing a novel and also taking the opportunity of spending many weeks trapped indoors to have a period of reflection. I’ve taken a social media break (No Facebook or Twitter), which has lasted a week now and I’ve missed it a loss less than I thought I would. So I’m re-evaluating my relationship with those platforms and what I want to use them for. The reason I wanted a break was to concentrate on delivering a piece of writing, but also, as a secondary bonus, a method of becoming less distracted.

Like many writers I also have a day job, and I’m working from home. But the fact I no longer have a commute and am no longer going out means I have more time to write. But as many writers have already pointed out – living through a crisis makes it harder to write. Also at the beginning – before this became a new normal – I seemed to be busier with socialising (via video calls instead of in person) than I was before the lockdown. That has tailed off a little now. As my location has become static I’ve taken the opportunity to take life slower. I’ve been trying to build new habits and procrastinate less too.

So, this is bad news (some of my books no longer being available) but as the old adage has it – one door closes, and another opens. I’ll just have to find out where that other door is and steal a key or kick it down and now I think I’ve taken that image as far as it will go…

Before the lockdown I was lucky enough to attend (with my Festival of Literature hat on) a Penguin social event and picked up several ARCs (and being in lockdown has allowed me to read them) – I also got a couple of ARCs from those wonderful people at Titan.

I can thoroughly recommend The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams:

 

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And Eden by Tim Lebbon

 

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These are both great reads (and wildly different from each other obviously!)

Here’s hoping you stay safe – happy reading & happy writing!