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Word by Word: An Inspirational Look at the Craft of Writing
Word by Word, by John Tullius & Elizabeth Engstrom and the presenters of the Maui Writers Conference, is a compilation of presentations made during the first six years of the event, and includes inspiration and information from Richard Paul Evans, Terry Brooks, Ernest J. Gaines, Elizabeth George, Julie Garwood, David Guterson, Mitch Albom, Tony Hillerman, Ron Howard, Susan Isaacs, Barry Kemp, Ridley Pearson, Nicholas Sparks, and more than a dozen others. It will also include success stories from new writers in all phases of writing and publishing. The Maui Writers Conference began in 1993 and takes place every Labor Day weekend at the Grand Wailea Hotel and Spa. It attracts hundreds of participants each year who come to the island to interact with agents and editors, and to hear presentations by some of the most successful authors and screenwriters today.
- GenresWriting
344 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 24, 2013
Good, but not great advice about writing and the writer's life in here. Pretty average overall, and a lot of it seems sort of dated with a copyright of 2000. Some of it, however, details the kind of craft we don't see much of in modern fiction anymore, so I found this book valuable for that reason. The best parts are the snippets in between each essay, like the following from Steve Goldberry:
'There's a terrain to the page. The eye is the traveler over that terrain. And the eye likes variety. The eye likes white space, too, because it's lazy, so I try to use short paragraphs. If I can, I have people talking, so that the eye can move around the quotation mark.'
Interesting, no? Otherwise, an average collection of suggestions and insights.
ETA: A little mea culpa on this book--it's actually got some fun advice from various profic and pro-screenplay writers sprinkled in here that I've come to think is valuable. I've been collecting them for my quotes list here all week.
'There's a terrain to the page. The eye is the traveler over that terrain. And the eye likes variety. The eye likes white space, too, because it's lazy, so I try to use short paragraphs. If I can, I have people talking, so that the eye can move around the quotation mark.'
Interesting, no? Otherwise, an average collection of suggestions and insights.
ETA: A little mea culpa on this book--it's actually got some fun advice from various profic and pro-screenplay writers sprinkled in here that I've come to think is valuable. I've been collecting them for my quotes list here all week.
Displaying 1 of 1 review