Teaser Tuesdays: Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

Posted on August 6, 2013 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. And try not to include spoilers!

bones

I am enjoying this small, impactful writing guide, recommended to me (indirectly) from within the pages of… one of Haven Kimmel’s books, I’m not sure at this point which one. I keep making false starts or having intentions of Writing; one of the gems I’m getting from Writing Down the Bones is to just start. Also –

First, consider the pen you write with. It should be a fast-writing pen because your thoughts are always much faster than your hand. You don’t want to slow up your hand even more with a slow pen.

This gives me pause. Goldberg clearly recommends writing by hand, and that is hard for me. I have been using computers from such a young age, and exclusively for my writing-heavy academic career (high school, college, grad school), that my handwriting is slow, painful, and not great; this is a generational problem, obviously, and this book was originally published in 1986, almost before my time. She has some hesitations about typing rather than handwriting, though, and that’s something to consider.

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Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction, edited by Lee Gutkind

Posted on September 20, 2012 by pagesofjulia

This is an excellent and succinct tool. It first offers some discussion of the parameters of creative nonfiction by a man “often referred to as ‘the godfather behind creative nonfiction,'” Lee Gutkind. It’s just what I was looking for. Gutkind’s introduction muses on the definition of the genre (difficult to pin down, of course, as these things always are), and addresses the concerns sometimes raised about the conflict between creativity and nonfiction. He also acknowledges some of the literary controversies (James Frey, Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, etc.) that have hurt the genre’s credibility. And then the bulk of the book begins: writing advice. “The ABCs of Creative Nonfiction” move from “Acknowledgement of Sources” through “Writers’ Responsibility to Subjects” (the contributing writers apparently didn’t want to force the issue by contriving a Z, for which I respect them).

Each of these sections is concise – the whole book barely makes 150 pages – but packed with good advice. Legal and ethical issues receive more than a few pages, which I think is appropriate. Although the central recommendation there seems to be “when in doubt, get a lawyer,” there’s more to it than that: they cite legal precedent and explore the definition of libel, which I found useful and informative. There were also sections addressing interview techniques and the pros and cons of note-taking vs. tape recording (or other audio recordings). There are bits of creative-nonfiction-specific guidance, like how to get inside the heads of characters who are not you and still stick to the facts. And finally, certain chapters deliver straightforward writing advice: how to show, not tell; find a voice; structure a story; and set a scene.

This is not a book for a professional journalist, necessarily, although I could be wrong; maybe those professionals should read this book, too. It’s certainly brief and informative. But I get the impression that it is more geared towards people like me: laypersons without journalism backgrounds who are interested in writing creative nonfiction and want to know the basics. I found it a valuable piece of instruction at just my level; it gave me things to think about, books to put on my list, and actually inspired me to jot a few passages down towards my own project. I recommend it.

Rating: 7 pagesofjulia.

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Teaser Tuesdays: Keep It Real, edited by Lee Gutkind

Posted on September 18, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just open your current read to a random page and share a few sentences. Be careful not to include spoilers!

What a quick-reading gem of nonfiction writing advice I’ve found here. I like this one for its imagery:

Brevity editor Dinty W. Moore asks his writers for sharp description and careful distillation. “I like to imagine a brush fire, deep inside a national park,” he explains. “The reader is a firefighter, and the writer’s job is to parachute that reader directly to the edge of the blaze to encounter flame and smoke immediately. There is no time for the long hike in.”

I confess my interest in fires and firefighting, especially in the national parks, didn’t hurt the effect this passage had on me. Review coming shortly. I will be recommending this one.

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