Buzz
by John Wolf
We've all read Stephen King's "On Writing", right? You know the almost a complete biography where Steve tells how his life experiences molded his being and drove him to becoming a writer. The actual writing advice is the middle portion of the book, but what made the book compelling was the last section where he explained how a near death experience interrupted the writing of the book and nearly took it to the grave with him. The man who hit him with a truck, as described by King, was no less than one of the characters out of his own stories. To me, Stephen's advice on writing left me wanting more.
Searching for information to satisfy this craving for guidance to better writing, I came across two books that I want to share with you. The first is "The First Five Pages - A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile." Like all great writing, it has a strong beginning, an exciting middle, and an killer end in the title alone. The first five pages - tells us what the book focuses on. A writer's guide - tells us this is a how-to-do-it piece. And the staying out of the rejection pile is the hook ending. How can you not read this now.
The author is Noah Ludeman a noted New York literary agent. His peeps are all literary geniuses and his credentials all involve Ivy League schools. Enough said.
The book not only has great advice so that your submittal is picked up by an agent, it goes further by telling you how to make the whole story sellable. The title is a tease. To be true to the original intent, the chapters are grouped by importance to the agent, whose judgment is critical, on those elements that are looked at first, and if any of them flinches in the slightest degree, the whole manuscript is shot down in cold blood. There are no prisoners taken here.
This is a valuable asset for any writer. The advice is inspiring and the writing is smooth and palatable. I enjoyed the story of how to write a successful story as much as the sage advice. Many of the subject paragraphs concepts had never occurred to me before as being vital, but they are. Each area of concern to agents, should not be overlooked by a wannabe author. Even if you get passed the first five pages, the whole machine has to hum or it goes in the scrap heap.
Next is "Self-editing for Fiction Writers - How to edit yourself into print." Another advice filled title. Note to non-fiction writers - this title style should speak to you! Anyway, this book has two authors: Renni Browne and Dave King, both are expert editors. Renni was a mainstream publishing editor and now heads several editorial agencies to promote excellent editing skill, and Dave is a contributing editor for several magazines dealing with writing skills.
This book gets right down to the matter and section by section shows you the pitfalls to avoid. There are exercises at the end of each chapter that can be used as a basis for a classroom course on how to improve your editing skills. Besides, this book is filled with cartoon jokes focused on the plight of writers. It kind-da looks New Yorker in style. Maybe that was the intent.
I found these last two books mentioned here to be essential references for my personal library. That's means I've already marked the heck out them, underlining the goodies. No regrets in reading Stephen King's book, but the real meat is with the Noah Lukeman book.
John's latest novel is set in India - a modern day mystery
Entitled: "Of Beryl and Alabaster" coming soooon.
Thanks to all the Fox & Quill readers... John Wolf
