Useful,
Bits of this book were a college class assignment, but I never actually got around to reading it. The PDFs I have for it were helpful in the past when reading through, but the book in its entirety gave me a lot to consider.
All the essays in here were a mixed bag. Some were meh, where I didn’t much care for them, as it felt a few were trying to be a little bit too philosophical and deep or just didn’t work for me. But others I was glued to the pages, pausing to note the great insight. A wide range of subjects were covered, world-building, style, form, characters, ingenuity, historical presence, scene, etc.
My favorites:
Susan Bell’s “Revising the Great Gatsby.” I got so much good material out of that. It was simple, straightforward, and provided specifics. I also love the Great Gatsby. When I had the chance to read it as a PDF(during Covid) as a requirement in high school after seeing the movie a few years before, I remember its themes really sticking with me. Middle school me was left thinking about the movie plot and characters for days and I was left puzzled on why I was fixated on it, or why I was so on the edge of my seat, the emotions hitting me hard. I remember thinking, just what made it so dang good? Being just as fascinated with the book in high school, it’s break down here makes so much sense in retrospect. .
Jim Shepards’s “Generating fiction from history and/or fact,” was extremely helpful and also something I connected with. I love art and media that really shows the humanity in people, humanity undressed beneath the surface. Those deep moments of raw emotion and connection between people where a person’s whole 3 dimensional self is expressed are the stories I connect with the most. He talked about this in his essay. I was also wondering how to tackle the whole “important of knowing your facts and honoring the source material,” while also making it somewhat my own. Jim covered this pretty thoroughly and I was delighted on the way he used Nathan Englander’s “the Tumblers.” It was a fantastic example and now I want a copy of that too, haha.
Do I recommend? Depends. I’d say worth a read through once, but it’s not for everyone, and some of the advice I wouldn’t take as the standard, the end all be all. Only something to think upon.
Overall, pretty good. I felt like my brain was being massaged and stretched, thinking up ideas for my stories just through reading it, as talking about and consuming content on writing usually does the trick in getting the flow going.