Status
Available
Genres
Publication
Writer's Digest Books (2012), 240 pages
Description
Writers write the way they were taught, which may not suit them at all, making their writing slow, painful, and not what they want to say. Writing Your Wayshows you how to create your own unique writing process that magnifies your strengths and avoids your weaknesses. It shows you a multitude of ways to do the five key stages: Idea, Gather, Organize, Draft, and Revise. You can then design your own collection of techniques that work for you. You'll write clearer, faster, and more powerfully, with less effort and suffering. The second half of this book shows you how to create and modify your own voice, one that sounds like the real you, that sounds the way you want agents and publishers and readers to experience you.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Silvernfire
If you're wondering whether or not to read this book, start with deciding if you're in the target audience. Fry says he meant this book for "nonfiction writers who are not journalists." He talks a lot about working with editors, so I'm thinking journalists might be part of his audience anyway. But
Fry aims to present a range of writing techniques with the intention that the reader pick through them and put together a personalized writing process. I thought the book did have a slight "list" feel to it: one technique following another, on and on (it started out as individual blog posts, which probably contributed to that feeling). The techniques are organized by what I think is his own process, from having an idea, through developing and researching it, to writing and revising it. He also has a chapter on creating your writing voice; one of the only books I've found that has practical suggestions on developing it. Reading the whole book start to finish took a bit of effort on my part, probably because of that "list" feel. You wouldn't usually read a blog straight through from its first posts without taking breaks to read other things, and I think this book would also digest better when read in small doses. Nonfiction writers, especially those intending to write magazine articles and/or blog posts, are likely to find this book useful; others may wish to borrow the book first to see if it's right for them.
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if you're a would-be novelist, while you'll probably find something useful in here, your time might be better spent reading books focused on fiction writing.Fry aims to present a range of writing techniques with the intention that the reader pick through them and put together a personalized writing process. I thought the book did have a slight "list" feel to it: one technique following another, on and on (it started out as individual blog posts, which probably contributed to that feeling). The techniques are organized by what I think is his own process, from having an idea, through developing and researching it, to writing and revising it. He also has a chapter on creating your writing voice; one of the only books I've found that has practical suggestions on developing it. Reading the whole book start to finish took a bit of effort on my part, probably because of that "list" feel. You wouldn't usually read a blog straight through from its first posts without taking breaks to read other things, and I think this book would also digest better when read in small doses. Nonfiction writers, especially those intending to write magazine articles and/or blog posts, are likely to find this book useful; others may wish to borrow the book first to see if it's right for them.
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Language
Original language
English
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