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Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers
Offers practical advice on assessing the market for works of fiction, handling rejections, and practicing self-discipline as well as providing other useful hints for the aspiring writer
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1981
115 people are currently reading
1901 people want to read
About the author
Lawrence Block
761 books2,997 followersLawrence Block has been writing crime, mystery, and suspense fiction for more than half a century. He has published in excess (oh, wretched excess!) of 100 books, and no end of short stories.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
Born in Buffalo, N.Y., LB attended Antioch College, but left before completing his studies; school authorities advised him that they felt he’d be happier elsewhere, and he thought this was remarkably perceptive of them.
His earliest work, published pseudonymously in the late 1950s, was mostly in the field of midcentury erotica, an apprenticeship he shared with Donald E. Westlake and Robert Silverberg. The first time Lawrence Block’s name appeared in print was when his short story “You Can’t Lose” was published in the February 1958 issue of Manhunt. The first book published under his own name was Mona (1961); it was reissued several times over the years, once as Sweet Slow Death. In 2005 it became the first offering from Hard Case Crime, and bore for the first time LB’s original title, Grifter’s Game.
LB is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.
Because one name is never enough, LB has also published under pseudonyms including Jill Emerson, John Warren Wells, Lesley Evans, and Anne Campbell Clarke.
LB’s magazine appearances include American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Linn’s Stamp News, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times. His monthly instructional column ran in Writer’s Digest for 14 years, and led to a string of books for writers, including the classics Telling Lies for Fun & Profit and The Liar’s Bible. He has also written episodic television (Tilt!) and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights.
Several of LB’s books have been filmed. The latest, A Walk Among the Tombstones, stars Liam Neeson as Matthew Scudder and is scheduled for release in September, 2014.
LB is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each, and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). He’s also been honored with the Gumshoe Lifetime Achievement Award from Mystery Ink magazine and the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement in the short story. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Spain and Taiwan. As if that were not enough, he was also presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. (But as soon as he left, they changed the locks.)
LB and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers; the two are members of the Travelers Century Club, and have visited around 160 countries.
He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
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April 11, 2020
”Let me always remember that I’m not in competition with other writers. Whether they have more or less success has nothing to do with me. They have their stories to write and I have mine. They have their way of writing them and I have mine. They have their careers and I have mine. The more I focus on comparing myself with them, the less energy I am able to concentrate on making the best of myself and my own work. I wind up despairing of my ability and bitter about its fruits, and all I manage to do is sabotage myself.”
As I was going back through my notes to write this review, the quote above really jumped out at me because I devoted a certain amount of my weekend reading an international bestseller. I was looking for a bit of insight from a first novel by a writer that had created so much buzz that there was a bidding war for the rights. It won numerous prizes, too many to list. I started reading it, hoping some of the magic would reveal itself to me. I was, needless to say, underwhelmed on practically every point that a novel is judged by. More importantly I was left questioning what was important to me about my own writing. To me, this book was nothing more than a good airplane spinner rack book that would divert me while on a long flight. Nothing wrong with that, but for the book to be lauded as more than that was frankly alarming.
Thank goodness Lawrence Block was here to help me recenter myself. I still was thinking to myself, if readers were all aglow about this type of book, was there really a place in the market for the type of novel that I would write? Of course, it was almost as if Block was reading my mind.
”Please, don’t ever allow me to hold my audience in contempt. Sometimes I find this a temptation, because by diminishing the reader I am less intimidated by the task of trying to engage his interest and hold his attention. But in the long run I cannot be disrespectful of my reader without my work’s suffering for it.”
Okay, so I need Larry on speed dial, but fortunately for him, if I keep this book near to hand, I won’t be driving him insane, railing about my own inadequacies or the inadequacies of readers or the fickleness of publishers. What is really remarkable about this book is how Block squeezes the bitterness out of every aspect of writing and continually focuses the task of writing back to...well...writing.
These are a series of articles that Block wrote for Writer’s Digest, and even though this book was compiled in 1981, the advice and observations are as relevant for a writer today as they were for a struggling writer in the mid-1980s. Yes, you will be reading about him pounding away at a typewriter instead of soft tapping on a computer keypad, but writing is still writing. Good storytelling has not evolved that much past the days of the dinosaurs when early homo sapien was drawing stick figures on a cave wall to tell the story of a successful hunt.
I read pieces of this book each morning before sitting down at my desk to write. He is so optimistic and wise that my confidence was soaring at a high level by the time I started tickling the keys. When I say I plan to keep it near to hand, I’m not joking. It is going to reside on my desk, and whenever I get blue or doubtful, I will open it to a random page and start reading.
”It’s only a book, I’ve told myself time and time again. Sometimes it feels like the most important thing in your life, and it seems to be what you do to justify your own existence, but don’t take it so seriously. It’s just words on paper, it’s just a pack of lies. Listen, it’s only a book.”
When I decided to sit down and start writing a novel, I tied myself up in knots to the point that I had difficulty beginning. Everything I wrote, I loathed. It was only after I decided that I didn’t have to write The Great Gatsby (after all, it has already been written) that I finally unwound my tangled limbs and began to write what I wanted to write. More importantly, I started writing what I wanted to read. Block reassured me that trying to write a book that I think publishers or readers will like is a pure formula for writing something that I, the writer, will end up despising.
And what is the point of that.
Block also relentlessly hounds me to submit and submit and submit again until some poor bastard buys something I have written. I’ve been piling up stories and novels like a squirrel hoarding nuts, but I have only dipped my toe in the water a few times with submissions and received the typical slammed door rejection. Fitzgerald papered his walls with rejection slips, but it didn’t seem to deter him from continuing to write, and thank goodness he proved resilient. Even after Block became a well respected writer, he was still getting rejected. Rejection is just part of the game. Even John Douglas, who wrote Mindhunter, talks about how difficult, even today, it is for him to get a book deal. That sort of puts everything in proper perspective. Rejection is never fun, no matter how calloused you may become, but it must be kept in proper perspective as well.
Block discusses the proper use of dialogue and how important good dialogue is for a story. He talks about not beginning a story at the beginning. He explains what a lead looks like. He talks about minimizing self-abuse (not masturbation but more like flagellation). He explains character building. He assures us that creative procrastination is not always a bad thing and is sometimes necessary. Should you write in first person or third? Seriously, in this relatively short book he manages to answer about any questions you might have as a writer.
I love this quote from Martin Cruz Smith: ”Lawrence Block is a writer’s best friend. He is wise, he is funny, and, to tell the truth, he is damn helpful. When best friends and mothers fail, read this book.”
I was frequently snorting or chuckling or even laughing out loud at many of Block’s humorous assertions. He is a master of self-deprecating humor. There is no doubt that one must have a sense of humor to even consider being a writer.
Seriously, if you are a frustrated writer and have been considering hanging up your spurs, read this book first. It might give your dreams new life.
Sometimes we try to make writing more complicated than it is. We don’t need fancy software programs or even computers. I remember Stephen King talking about, in his excellent book On Writing, being stuck in a hotel lobby, waiting to check in, and this idea was just burning him up. He finally pulls out a yellow notebook, finds a table with a chair, and sits down to write. He couldn’t wait to get up to his room and set up his computer. He had to write it...now. This man has written millions of words, and yet new thoughts and concepts still hound him. I find that so inspirational.
”And let me always be grateful that I am a writer, that I am actually doing the only work I’ve ever really wanted to do, and that I don’t need anyone’s permission to do it. Just something to write with and something to write on.”
Highly recommended!
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
As I was going back through my notes to write this review, the quote above really jumped out at me because I devoted a certain amount of my weekend reading an international bestseller. I was looking for a bit of insight from a first novel by a writer that had created so much buzz that there was a bidding war for the rights. It won numerous prizes, too many to list. I started reading it, hoping some of the magic would reveal itself to me. I was, needless to say, underwhelmed on practically every point that a novel is judged by. More importantly I was left questioning what was important to me about my own writing. To me, this book was nothing more than a good airplane spinner rack book that would divert me while on a long flight. Nothing wrong with that, but for the book to be lauded as more than that was frankly alarming.
Thank goodness Lawrence Block was here to help me recenter myself. I still was thinking to myself, if readers were all aglow about this type of book, was there really a place in the market for the type of novel that I would write? Of course, it was almost as if Block was reading my mind.
”Please, don’t ever allow me to hold my audience in contempt. Sometimes I find this a temptation, because by diminishing the reader I am less intimidated by the task of trying to engage his interest and hold his attention. But in the long run I cannot be disrespectful of my reader without my work’s suffering for it.”
Okay, so I need Larry on speed dial, but fortunately for him, if I keep this book near to hand, I won’t be driving him insane, railing about my own inadequacies or the inadequacies of readers or the fickleness of publishers. What is really remarkable about this book is how Block squeezes the bitterness out of every aspect of writing and continually focuses the task of writing back to...well...writing.
These are a series of articles that Block wrote for Writer’s Digest, and even though this book was compiled in 1981, the advice and observations are as relevant for a writer today as they were for a struggling writer in the mid-1980s. Yes, you will be reading about him pounding away at a typewriter instead of soft tapping on a computer keypad, but writing is still writing. Good storytelling has not evolved that much past the days of the dinosaurs when early homo sapien was drawing stick figures on a cave wall to tell the story of a successful hunt.
I read pieces of this book each morning before sitting down at my desk to write. He is so optimistic and wise that my confidence was soaring at a high level by the time I started tickling the keys. When I say I plan to keep it near to hand, I’m not joking. It is going to reside on my desk, and whenever I get blue or doubtful, I will open it to a random page and start reading.
”It’s only a book, I’ve told myself time and time again. Sometimes it feels like the most important thing in your life, and it seems to be what you do to justify your own existence, but don’t take it so seriously. It’s just words on paper, it’s just a pack of lies. Listen, it’s only a book.”
When I decided to sit down and start writing a novel, I tied myself up in knots to the point that I had difficulty beginning. Everything I wrote, I loathed. It was only after I decided that I didn’t have to write The Great Gatsby (after all, it has already been written) that I finally unwound my tangled limbs and began to write what I wanted to write. More importantly, I started writing what I wanted to read. Block reassured me that trying to write a book that I think publishers or readers will like is a pure formula for writing something that I, the writer, will end up despising.
And what is the point of that.
Block also relentlessly hounds me to submit and submit and submit again until some poor bastard buys something I have written. I’ve been piling up stories and novels like a squirrel hoarding nuts, but I have only dipped my toe in the water a few times with submissions and received the typical slammed door rejection. Fitzgerald papered his walls with rejection slips, but it didn’t seem to deter him from continuing to write, and thank goodness he proved resilient. Even after Block became a well respected writer, he was still getting rejected. Rejection is just part of the game. Even John Douglas, who wrote Mindhunter, talks about how difficult, even today, it is for him to get a book deal. That sort of puts everything in proper perspective. Rejection is never fun, no matter how calloused you may become, but it must be kept in proper perspective as well.
Block discusses the proper use of dialogue and how important good dialogue is for a story. He talks about not beginning a story at the beginning. He explains what a lead looks like. He talks about minimizing self-abuse (not masturbation but more like flagellation). He explains character building. He assures us that creative procrastination is not always a bad thing and is sometimes necessary. Should you write in first person or third? Seriously, in this relatively short book he manages to answer about any questions you might have as a writer.
I love this quote from Martin Cruz Smith: ”Lawrence Block is a writer’s best friend. He is wise, he is funny, and, to tell the truth, he is damn helpful. When best friends and mothers fail, read this book.”
I was frequently snorting or chuckling or even laughing out loud at many of Block’s humorous assertions. He is a master of self-deprecating humor. There is no doubt that one must have a sense of humor to even consider being a writer.
Seriously, if you are a frustrated writer and have been considering hanging up your spurs, read this book first. It might give your dreams new life.
Sometimes we try to make writing more complicated than it is. We don’t need fancy software programs or even computers. I remember Stephen King talking about, in his excellent book On Writing, being stuck in a hotel lobby, waiting to check in, and this idea was just burning him up. He finally pulls out a yellow notebook, finds a table with a chair, and sits down to write. He couldn’t wait to get up to his room and set up his computer. He had to write it...now. This man has written millions of words, and yet new thoughts and concepts still hound him. I find that so inspirational.
”And let me always be grateful that I am a writer, that I am actually doing the only work I’ve ever really wanted to do, and that I don’t need anyone’s permission to do it. Just something to write with and something to write on.”
Highly recommended!
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
August 6, 2011
Telling Lies for Fun & Profit is a collection of some of Lawrence Block's columns from Writer's Digest.
Most of the time I see books on writing, they're by people I've never heard of and I pass them by. Stephen King's On Writing has been my favorite book on writing for years... but now he has competition.
I picked up this book because Lawrence Block has become one of my favorite writers in the past few years and because I felt like I have more in common with the esteemed Mr. Block than I do Stephen King and was I ever right! Block shares bits of wisdom stemming from his experiences as a writer and entertains as he teaches. Block talks about cranking out a soft core porn novel in three days to pay the hospital bills when one of his kids was born, as well as taking forever on other novels. Most of the time, I felt like Block was talking directly to me, so much so that this book could have been called Telling Lies for Fun & Profit, Dan.
Block covers topics as diverse as character names, procrastination, and P.G. Wodehouse's skill at turning nouns into verbs, all three being topics near and dear to me. So many of the things I experience when I write were addressed in this book.
So why only four stars? The book is pretty outdated. I lost count of how many times Block mentioned a typewriter and the idea of using a library for research instead of the internet is almost unfathomable in this day and age. But my main gripe was that I wanted it to be four or five times as long. Luckily, I already have the next Lawrence Block book in my possession...
Most of the time I see books on writing, they're by people I've never heard of and I pass them by. Stephen King's On Writing has been my favorite book on writing for years... but now he has competition.
I picked up this book because Lawrence Block has become one of my favorite writers in the past few years and because I felt like I have more in common with the esteemed Mr. Block than I do Stephen King and was I ever right! Block shares bits of wisdom stemming from his experiences as a writer and entertains as he teaches. Block talks about cranking out a soft core porn novel in three days to pay the hospital bills when one of his kids was born, as well as taking forever on other novels. Most of the time, I felt like Block was talking directly to me, so much so that this book could have been called Telling Lies for Fun & Profit, Dan.
Block covers topics as diverse as character names, procrastination, and P.G. Wodehouse's skill at turning nouns into verbs, all three being topics near and dear to me. So many of the things I experience when I write were addressed in this book.
So why only four stars? The book is pretty outdated. I lost count of how many times Block mentioned a typewriter and the idea of using a library for research instead of the internet is almost unfathomable in this day and age. But my main gripe was that I wanted it to be four or five times as long. Luckily, I already have the next Lawrence Block book in my possession...
February 7, 2018
Crime writer Lawrence Block's book on writing is one of the best I've ever read. By being specific and giving practical advice from long experience, it's much more helpful than many others.
Telling Lies for Fun & Profit is like a 47 chapter course on how to write like a pro...well, hold up! It doesn't propose to turn you into the great American writer. You won't necessarily become a rich and famous novelist because of this book. What I mean is, Block gives you a career's worth of tips on how to hone your craft after you've mastered the basics. Quite literally, you must be able to arrange your nouns and verbs in the right order before a book like this will be of any use to you. Sound simple enough? Well, you'd think so...
Having read a dozen or more how-to-write books from established writers, I found that Telling Lies for Fun & Profit treads on some familiar territory now and then. But even when it did, I still garnered some useful knowledge just from Block's unique take on a subject. Even if it wasn't completely unique, it would at least have a fresh angle to its approach.
One of my favorite parts was when Block admitted that he essentially hates writing. Here's the whole excerpt. I'll underline the specific part, but as a whole it makes more sense:
...writing’s not much fun.
I really wonder why that is...It’s been my observation that painters, both professional and amateur, love to paint. They get genuine enjoyment out of the physical act of smearing paint on canvas. Sometimes they’re blocked, sometimes they’re frustrated, but when they’re painting the very process of creation is a joy to them.
Same thing certainly holds true for musicians. They only seem to feel alive when they’re performing. The jazz musicians I’ve known spend their afternoons practicing scales and such, work all night performing, then jam for free at an after-hours joint until dawn, just for the sheer pleasure of it.
In sharp contrast, almost every writer I know will go to great lengths to avoid being in the same room with his typewriter. Those of us who are driven to produce great quantities of manuscript don’t necessarily get any real pleasure out of the act; it’s just that we feel worse when we don’t write. It’s not the carrot but the stick that gets most of us moving.
I don’t mean to suggest that there’s no positive pleasure connected with writing. I enjoy getting ideas, for example—both the initial plot germs and the ideas that develop in the course of extended work on a novel. And I very much enjoy having written; the satisfaction of having completed a taxing piece of work can be monumental.
This latter pleasure, come to think of it, is a negative one, isn’t it? When I’m delirious with joy over having finished something, my joy stems in large part from the fact that I do not have to work on it any more, that the dratted thing is over and done with. So it’s nice being about to write, and it’s nice to have written. But is there no way to enjoy writing while it’s going on?
One thing that impedes enjoyment, I would think, is that writing’s hard work. Painters and musicians work hard, too, but there’s a difference. You can’t really relax and go with the flow while you’re writing—at least I can’t, and if anyone can show me how, I’ll be delighted to learn. Writing demands all of my attention and focuses me entirely in the present. I can’t let my mind wander, and if my mind wanders in spite of itself I find I can’t write, and when I want to write and can’t write I find myself possessed of murderous rage.
When a painting doesn’t go well the artist can keep on painting and cover it up. When a musician’s not at his best, the notes he plays float off on the air and he can forget about them. When I’m off my form, the garbage I’ve written just sits there on the page and thumbs its nose at me. And when it gets into print that way, it’s there for all the world to see, forever.
Painters and musicians would probably quibble over a few points there, but from a writer's perspective, it was nice to hear this sort of stuff from a seasoned professional.
From the standpoint of a fan of Block's fiction, this was also fun to read, because it was written in the early '80s. By then he'd published countless books and even completed a series or two. At the time though, he was just getting back into the flow of working on his Scudder detective series, the one that most Block fans seem to regard as his best work. To hear him talk about it with uncertainty provided a nice, autobiographical insight.
Highly recommended to writers, as well as to Block's fans!
Telling Lies for Fun & Profit is like a 47 chapter course on how to write like a pro...well, hold up! It doesn't propose to turn you into the great American writer. You won't necessarily become a rich and famous novelist because of this book. What I mean is, Block gives you a career's worth of tips on how to hone your craft after you've mastered the basics. Quite literally, you must be able to arrange your nouns and verbs in the right order before a book like this will be of any use to you. Sound simple enough? Well, you'd think so...
Having read a dozen or more how-to-write books from established writers, I found that Telling Lies for Fun & Profit treads on some familiar territory now and then. But even when it did, I still garnered some useful knowledge just from Block's unique take on a subject. Even if it wasn't completely unique, it would at least have a fresh angle to its approach.
One of my favorite parts was when Block admitted that he essentially hates writing. Here's the whole excerpt. I'll underline the specific part, but as a whole it makes more sense:
...writing’s not much fun.
I really wonder why that is...It’s been my observation that painters, both professional and amateur, love to paint. They get genuine enjoyment out of the physical act of smearing paint on canvas. Sometimes they’re blocked, sometimes they’re frustrated, but when they’re painting the very process of creation is a joy to them.
Same thing certainly holds true for musicians. They only seem to feel alive when they’re performing. The jazz musicians I’ve known spend their afternoons practicing scales and such, work all night performing, then jam for free at an after-hours joint until dawn, just for the sheer pleasure of it.
In sharp contrast, almost every writer I know will go to great lengths to avoid being in the same room with his typewriter. Those of us who are driven to produce great quantities of manuscript don’t necessarily get any real pleasure out of the act; it’s just that we feel worse when we don’t write. It’s not the carrot but the stick that gets most of us moving.
I don’t mean to suggest that there’s no positive pleasure connected with writing. I enjoy getting ideas, for example—both the initial plot germs and the ideas that develop in the course of extended work on a novel. And I very much enjoy having written; the satisfaction of having completed a taxing piece of work can be monumental.
This latter pleasure, come to think of it, is a negative one, isn’t it? When I’m delirious with joy over having finished something, my joy stems in large part from the fact that I do not have to work on it any more, that the dratted thing is over and done with. So it’s nice being about to write, and it’s nice to have written. But is there no way to enjoy writing while it’s going on?
One thing that impedes enjoyment, I would think, is that writing’s hard work. Painters and musicians work hard, too, but there’s a difference. You can’t really relax and go with the flow while you’re writing—at least I can’t, and if anyone can show me how, I’ll be delighted to learn. Writing demands all of my attention and focuses me entirely in the present. I can’t let my mind wander, and if my mind wanders in spite of itself I find I can’t write, and when I want to write and can’t write I find myself possessed of murderous rage.
When a painting doesn’t go well the artist can keep on painting and cover it up. When a musician’s not at his best, the notes he plays float off on the air and he can forget about them. When I’m off my form, the garbage I’ve written just sits there on the page and thumbs its nose at me. And when it gets into print that way, it’s there for all the world to see, forever.
Painters and musicians would probably quibble over a few points there, but from a writer's perspective, it was nice to hear this sort of stuff from a seasoned professional.
From the standpoint of a fan of Block's fiction, this was also fun to read, because it was written in the early '80s. By then he'd published countless books and even completed a series or two. At the time though, he was just getting back into the flow of working on his Scudder detective series, the one that most Block fans seem to regard as his best work. To hear him talk about it with uncertainty provided a nice, autobiographical insight.
Highly recommended to writers, as well as to Block's fans!
July 30, 2016
The articles that compose this writing guide are all, happily, nicely written – but there's not much new here, I'm afraid, and not much applicable to my particular situation … Larry Block – as he tells the story a couple of times in this collection of essays – has basically always written. Motivation can be an issue for him, as it is for all writers, but for the most part the driving force that made him apply butt to chair and fingers to keyboard has been that he enjoys eating, and what puts food on his table is the money he makes by writing.
One article which raised my eyebrows a bit was one in which Block talks about how easy it is to excuse oneself from actually applying one's butt to one's chair and writing: "well, writers are actually working 24/7, every bit of sensory input has the possibility of adding to a scene sometime, there's editing needed, and research, and a good writer reads a great deal" – etc. What it comes down to, for Block, is that yes, he does agree with all of that – it's true, after all, even if it is easy to use the list as excuses – but what he feels is the real work is actually pushing the current project forward by so many pages. He doesn't set times, he says, but instead sets a daily goal that takes as long as it takes. His goal is, apparently, five pages a day, and this generally takes about three hours, and then he can feel free to, as he says, go enjoy the day.
Three hours?
No wonder so many people want to be writers when they grow up.
What he doesn't seem to be mentioning here is that it's probably taken him years to reach a level of discipline where he can, as mentioned, apply butt to chair and get to work rather than frittering away time and needing to achieve the correct mindset and such. Also, to where he can achieve five pages in three hours with some reliability; that's not always a given. In my experience sometimes twenty pages will come in that space of time; other times, one, and I count myself lucky.
The reasoning he gives for the five page/three hour goal is sound, but the reason my eyebrows went up was that it sounded so very much like something that could be misconstrued. Hhe may not at the time of the writing of this book have been making millions, but he'd established himself and was making a modest living. And the little nugget he neglects here is that the less time you spend writing, the less you will write – and the less you write, the less money you can make through your writing.
I said before that a lot of this misses the mark for me. That's because I do not now write and never have written short stories. It's not how my mind works. Maybe it should be; I know in past decades it was almost unthinkable to try to make it with a novel right out of the gate. You were supposed to write short stories and submit them and get them rejected and send them out again over and over till someone took them. I almost wish I could do that. A beaten path is always easier to follow. This is the way Jo March did it; this is the way E. Byrd Starr did it. This is the way Lawrence Block did it. Me? Not so much. Short stories are very simply not in my repertoire. (I don't know if a novel is, either, but that's what's in the works. Sort of.)
Due to the nature of the book – a collection of articles from whatever magazine this was – there is a great deal of repetition. Sometimes two essays in a row say essentially the same thing. Block says in the introduction that he decided to arrange the book in a sort of chronological-by-process way, and did very little editing to the essays beyond changing "essay" to "chapter" and such … As a writer, I'm sure this was a tremendous idea. As a reader, it wasn't. Rather than a book to read straight through, it became a reference book, something to dip into here and there.
One article which raised my eyebrows a bit was one in which Block talks about how easy it is to excuse oneself from actually applying one's butt to one's chair and writing: "well, writers are actually working 24/7, every bit of sensory input has the possibility of adding to a scene sometime, there's editing needed, and research, and a good writer reads a great deal" – etc. What it comes down to, for Block, is that yes, he does agree with all of that – it's true, after all, even if it is easy to use the list as excuses – but what he feels is the real work is actually pushing the current project forward by so many pages. He doesn't set times, he says, but instead sets a daily goal that takes as long as it takes. His goal is, apparently, five pages a day, and this generally takes about three hours, and then he can feel free to, as he says, go enjoy the day.
Three hours?
No wonder so many people want to be writers when they grow up.
What he doesn't seem to be mentioning here is that it's probably taken him years to reach a level of discipline where he can, as mentioned, apply butt to chair and get to work rather than frittering away time and needing to achieve the correct mindset and such. Also, to where he can achieve five pages in three hours with some reliability; that's not always a given. In my experience sometimes twenty pages will come in that space of time; other times, one, and I count myself lucky.
The reasoning he gives for the five page/three hour goal is sound, but the reason my eyebrows went up was that it sounded so very much like something that could be misconstrued. Hhe may not at the time of the writing of this book have been making millions, but he'd established himself and was making a modest living. And the little nugget he neglects here is that the less time you spend writing, the less you will write – and the less you write, the less money you can make through your writing.
I said before that a lot of this misses the mark for me. That's because I do not now write and never have written short stories. It's not how my mind works. Maybe it should be; I know in past decades it was almost unthinkable to try to make it with a novel right out of the gate. You were supposed to write short stories and submit them and get them rejected and send them out again over and over till someone took them. I almost wish I could do that. A beaten path is always easier to follow. This is the way Jo March did it; this is the way E. Byrd Starr did it. This is the way Lawrence Block did it. Me? Not so much. Short stories are very simply not in my repertoire. (I don't know if a novel is, either, but that's what's in the works. Sort of.)
Due to the nature of the book – a collection of articles from whatever magazine this was – there is a great deal of repetition. Sometimes two essays in a row say essentially the same thing. Block says in the introduction that he decided to arrange the book in a sort of chronological-by-process way, and did very little editing to the essays beyond changing "essay" to "chapter" and such … As a writer, I'm sure this was a tremendous idea. As a reader, it wasn't. Rather than a book to read straight through, it became a reference book, something to dip into here and there.
September 13, 2012
As part of NaNoWriMo preparation (and just because I like reading and writing), I decided to read Telling Lies for Fun and Profit by Lawrence Block, nevermind that I've never even heard of him before. And I realised that even if you've never her of this pulp fiction author, you should definitely read this book if you're interested in writing!
The book sounded boring at first. The first few chapters had stuff like "Setting your Sights" (about how to "discover your options as a writer"), "Studying the Market" (the "mechanics of market analysis") and so on. It sounded like a boring book that only had the aim of turning people into publishable writers. I'm so thankful I skipped the content page and summaries because I might have given up on the book.
Because from the first page onwards, the book is engaging and humorous. While it isn't one of those "follow your heart and everything will be ok", it does have emphasise on writing what you like. The difference is that book also insists that you have to know your strengths as a writer and then follow it.
In addition, the book also covers things like motivation (raising the very valid topic of Sunday Writers) as well as nitty gritty details like narrators and plot. Each chapter is fairly short but has a lot of content and entertainment value.
Speaking of Sunday Writers, the book spends a chapter discussing them. You see, in other arts, it's perfectly fine to carry it out as a hobby. You can be an ammateur painter, pianist (ok, maybe not pianist in Singapore), knitter, etc and not expect to make a living/acheive fame. But for some reason, if your hobby is writing, you have the urge to make as many people as possible read what you have wrote (and ideally, praise it).
I suppose that things like NaNoWriMo are there to just make writing fun. I was having a conversation with my friends and one of them was complaining about how it's going to be near impossible to reach the 50k word target recommended. And in one of my wittier moments, I replied "draw deep from the well of bs (bullshit)".
And you know what? That's true. Writing is fun because you can to write all sorts of things you'll never think of writing otherwise. Most of the time, the things we write are boring - reports and such (I mean, we do tend to stop writing fiction after we leave secondary school). So this is when we can indulge our over-active imaginations and write whatever we want.
That's the fun part, and well, we should be happy that we are writing. There's no need to get published/an agent.
Coming back to the book - I'm definitely going to be on the lookout for more books by Lawrence Block
First posted at With Love from Japan, Eustacia
The book sounded boring at first. The first few chapters had stuff like "Setting your Sights" (about how to "discover your options as a writer"), "Studying the Market" (the "mechanics of market analysis") and so on. It sounded like a boring book that only had the aim of turning people into publishable writers. I'm so thankful I skipped the content page and summaries because I might have given up on the book.
Because from the first page onwards, the book is engaging and humorous. While it isn't one of those "follow your heart and everything will be ok", it does have emphasise on writing what you like. The difference is that book also insists that you have to know your strengths as a writer and then follow it.
In addition, the book also covers things like motivation (raising the very valid topic of Sunday Writers) as well as nitty gritty details like narrators and plot. Each chapter is fairly short but has a lot of content and entertainment value.
Speaking of Sunday Writers, the book spends a chapter discussing them. You see, in other arts, it's perfectly fine to carry it out as a hobby. You can be an ammateur painter, pianist (ok, maybe not pianist in Singapore), knitter, etc and not expect to make a living/acheive fame. But for some reason, if your hobby is writing, you have the urge to make as many people as possible read what you have wrote (and ideally, praise it).
I suppose that things like NaNoWriMo are there to just make writing fun. I was having a conversation with my friends and one of them was complaining about how it's going to be near impossible to reach the 50k word target recommended. And in one of my wittier moments, I replied "draw deep from the well of bs (bullshit)".
And you know what? That's true. Writing is fun because you can to write all sorts of things you'll never think of writing otherwise. Most of the time, the things we write are boring - reports and such (I mean, we do tend to stop writing fiction after we leave secondary school). So this is when we can indulge our over-active imaginations and write whatever we want.
That's the fun part, and well, we should be happy that we are writing. There's no need to get published/an agent.
Coming back to the book - I'm definitely going to be on the lookout for more books by Lawrence Block
First posted at With Love from Japan, Eustacia
December 29, 2019
I'm gonna be honest here: I really don't get what all the hype is about with this book.
It's got some solid advice, all very basic. It scratches the surface of a broad range of topics, which is nice, but so shallowly and vaguely at times as to be relatively useless. It's also a book from the eighties. There might be newer editions out there that are revised and updated, I don't know, but my copy wasn't, and it felt pretty out of touch at times, which I suppose I can't fault an approximately forty year old book for being. What I can fault it for is the vague but decidedly uncomfortable sexist and racist undertones that crop up at times. In all the numerous examples of fiction referenced, I only noticed one woman writer mentioned, Agatha Christie. Similarly, the vast majority of protagonists mentioned in these literary references are men. The authour references one of his own books at one point, characterizing it as (paraphrasing since I already returned the book to the library) a story about a young man trying and failing to get laid. It doesn't give me a supreme amount of confidence in his ability to give me solid writing advice, let's just say that.
There's also a strong focus on detective/crime/suspense novels, so the advice is going to be more applicable in that sort of genre and less applicable in other cases.
There's definitely some good advice in this book as well, but I can't help thinking that there must be better writing advice books written in the past one or two decades out there to read instead, right? Maybe even ones not written by an old white guy? Maybe ones that don't give me the impression that I never want to actually read one of the authours novels in the slightest? Hopefully I can find one of those...
It's got some solid advice, all very basic. It scratches the surface of a broad range of topics, which is nice, but so shallowly and vaguely at times as to be relatively useless. It's also a book from the eighties. There might be newer editions out there that are revised and updated, I don't know, but my copy wasn't, and it felt pretty out of touch at times, which I suppose I can't fault an approximately forty year old book for being. What I can fault it for is the vague but decidedly uncomfortable sexist and racist undertones that crop up at times. In all the numerous examples of fiction referenced, I only noticed one woman writer mentioned, Agatha Christie. Similarly, the vast majority of protagonists mentioned in these literary references are men. The authour references one of his own books at one point, characterizing it as (paraphrasing since I already returned the book to the library) a story about a young man trying and failing to get laid. It doesn't give me a supreme amount of confidence in his ability to give me solid writing advice, let's just say that.
There's also a strong focus on detective/crime/suspense novels, so the advice is going to be more applicable in that sort of genre and less applicable in other cases.
There's definitely some good advice in this book as well, but I can't help thinking that there must be better writing advice books written in the past one or two decades out there to read instead, right? Maybe even ones not written by an old white guy? Maybe ones that don't give me the impression that I never want to actually read one of the authours novels in the slightest? Hopefully I can find one of those...
December 31, 2016
What a gem! I literally laughed out loud at some points. The author has a very unique, albeit dry sense of humour that makes this book a pleasure to read. It’s a must for any author: successful, aspiring, or otherwise. In fact, after reading it through once, I wanted to go back and reread some chapters just for the enjoyment of it! Some chapters were more applicable to my current situation than others, but each one had at least one nugget of wisdom, from very practical writing ‘how-to’ kind of stuff, to more philosophical questions about writing as a calling versus a job. He includes plenty of personal anecdotes that serve to also show readers what ‘not to do’. I can’t believe I haven’t come across this book before. it’s timeless - as fresh and relevant now as it was when it was first published – despite the changes in the publishing industry. All I can really advise is, “Read it!”
January 4, 2015
I've long been a fan of Lawrence Block. I've read about 40 of his books and I'm still buying more on virtually a daily basis to top up my new Kindle. He's a prolific writer and has written well over 100 books. I've long admired the infinite variation in his work and his skill as a wordsmith. This aid for those wishing to turn out a tome of their own was written about 30 years ago, way before he wrote much of the material I've since spent long nights absorbing. It's a humorous but hugely informing 'bible' on how to write a novel. I am totally gobsmacked (not a word, I sense, you'll find in one of LB's books) at how much there is to know. Naively, I thought you just banged away on your laptop until you had sixty thousand words and Bob's your uncle. Not a chance. But this book tells you all you need to know, even if the amount you need to know is likely to put most people off the idea of writing a novel completely. Hugely recommended for those who want to learn how to read a book better as well as those seeking wisdom to enable them to have a go themselves.
April 2, 2012
Plain and simple, one of the best books for fiction writers that I've read. Great for neophytes and veterans. Sometimes, it gives you the push you've been looking for; there's a chapter on quite a few different aspects of writing and one of those you probably have a question on.
I would have appreciated more exercises in this book (especially since it started out in column format, I would have thought there was something that Block could have written at the end that would have been a basic exercise in what had just been told). Overall, an inspiring read.
I would have appreciated more exercises in this book (especially since it started out in column format, I would have thought there was something that Block could have written at the end that would have been a basic exercise in what had just been told). Overall, an inspiring read.
August 29, 2013
A little old-fashioned humor never hurt anyone... and the tips and advice given by Lawrence Block in this writing classic far outweigh the groans that will be coaxed forth at his puns and gags. Some of them are enjoyable, actually. And he does a great job of using his own experience, giving examples, comparing for illustration, and showing why some things work and others don't. Highly recommended for those writing fiction.
June 6, 2013
This is one of the best books I've found on the discipline, craft, and profession of writing. I first read it twenty years ago, and just read it again and enjoyed it just as much.
Block not only has the experience to write from – dozens of novels and plenty of awards – but he has that knack for teaching that makes reading this book such a delight. He also doesn’t hold back on the rough parts of the profession, but tells it to you straight.
Each of the chapters were first published in his fiction column for Writer’s Digest and so they’re nice and compact. Block also keeps things lively by using unique ways of presenting his material, such as covering the topic of going to college for writing as a letter to his niece, and another as a back and forth lecture to students. He’s never annoying or arrogant (unless he means to be), but wise, a bit frayed from the road, and a journeyman craftsman.
There’s plenty on both the craft – what you get down on paper and how you present it – and also the life of being a writer – someone who notices things and procrastinates and has long talks in their head.
Block not only offers more helpful insight than most books on writing, but there’s also tips on areas rarely touched on, as in how to use dialogue in pivotal scenes, different kinds of adjectives in different povs, and visualizing details and yet not using them.
Everything is solid and useful, with plenty of examples. There’s also a great introduction by Sue Grafton that’s inspirational in itself, and she says she’d read this book each time before she started her early novels.
To sum up, it’s an excellent, candid resource for beginners and advanced writers alike, and highly recommended.
Block not only has the experience to write from – dozens of novels and plenty of awards – but he has that knack for teaching that makes reading this book such a delight. He also doesn’t hold back on the rough parts of the profession, but tells it to you straight.
Each of the chapters were first published in his fiction column for Writer’s Digest and so they’re nice and compact. Block also keeps things lively by using unique ways of presenting his material, such as covering the topic of going to college for writing as a letter to his niece, and another as a back and forth lecture to students. He’s never annoying or arrogant (unless he means to be), but wise, a bit frayed from the road, and a journeyman craftsman.
There’s plenty on both the craft – what you get down on paper and how you present it – and also the life of being a writer – someone who notices things and procrastinates and has long talks in their head.
Block not only offers more helpful insight than most books on writing, but there’s also tips on areas rarely touched on, as in how to use dialogue in pivotal scenes, different kinds of adjectives in different povs, and visualizing details and yet not using them.
Everything is solid and useful, with plenty of examples. There’s also a great introduction by Sue Grafton that’s inspirational in itself, and she says she’d read this book each time before she started her early novels.
To sum up, it’s an excellent, candid resource for beginners and advanced writers alike, and highly recommended.
October 8, 2014
Lawrence Block is the writing teacher I wish I had back in college. I often find books on writing to be dull and repetitive, but TELLING LIES hits upon a lot of useful topics that commonly get ignored--plus, Mr. Block always provides a fresh perspective, and his essays are as fun to read as they are informative. And if you are a Lawrence Block fan, this book will provide a lot of insight into the first half of the man's vastly prolific career.
This book will not tell you how to write the Great American Novel. The examples that Block gives of good writing is usually stuff by guys like Robert B. Parker or Richard Stark. In other words, people that were entertaining and successful; not literary dynamos that died penniless and were rediscovered years later by liberal arts professors. If you're looking to be the next James Joyce, this probably isn't the book you should read. If you're looking to be the next Harlan Coben or John Sandford, then it definitely is.
The main reason I give it four stars rather than five mostly has to do with the book being a collection of essays previously published in WRITER'S DIGEST, rather than something that was conceived and developed as an organic whole. Also, to be a bit nit-picky, the chapters on doing research are now hopelessly outdated, thanks to smartphones and the internet.
This book will not tell you how to write the Great American Novel. The examples that Block gives of good writing is usually stuff by guys like Robert B. Parker or Richard Stark. In other words, people that were entertaining and successful; not literary dynamos that died penniless and were rediscovered years later by liberal arts professors. If you're looking to be the next James Joyce, this probably isn't the book you should read. If you're looking to be the next Harlan Coben or John Sandford, then it definitely is.
The main reason I give it four stars rather than five mostly has to do with the book being a collection of essays previously published in WRITER'S DIGEST, rather than something that was conceived and developed as an organic whole. Also, to be a bit nit-picky, the chapters on doing research are now hopelessly outdated, thanks to smartphones and the internet.
September 25, 2011
I read Telling Lies for Fun and Profit in the early 1980s, a couple of years after I'd decided to put aside my attempts to write a publishable fiction novel for a while.
I knew I wasn't done with writing and that I would give it another try sometime, but it wasn't until I picked up Block's book of essays about writing that I decided it was time to write again. In friendly conversational style, Block gave me glimpses into a writer's world that seemed accessible and answered many of my questions before I'd even asked them. Can you name real places in a novel? What about using a pseudonym? With practical musings on a host of subjects, Block's ramble through the territory of writing gave me an inside view that told me it was time to pick up my dream of being a novelist and dust it off. The result was my first published novel, Pacific Disturbance.
Thanks, Lawrence Block, for giving writers a hand!
I knew I wasn't done with writing and that I would give it another try sometime, but it wasn't until I picked up Block's book of essays about writing that I decided it was time to write again. In friendly conversational style, Block gave me glimpses into a writer's world that seemed accessible and answered many of my questions before I'd even asked them. Can you name real places in a novel? What about using a pseudonym? With practical musings on a host of subjects, Block's ramble through the territory of writing gave me an inside view that told me it was time to pick up my dream of being a novelist and dust it off. The result was my first published novel, Pacific Disturbance.
Thanks, Lawrence Block, for giving writers a hand!
September 3, 2015
Writing advice books are a dime a dozen and they're kind of a mandatory passage in every writer's existence. There will be a time where you start finding them undoubtedly cool and where you will read as many as you can get your hands on. That time eventually passes and the only type of advice you'll seek advice only from people who you know have walked the walk.
People like Lawrence Block.
TELLING LIES FOR FUN AND PROFIT is a quirky writing advice book as half of it deals with breaking the myths of a writing career and that Mr. Block doesn't shy away from giving the circumstances of his success. None of the advice you will find in these are the typical crap you will find in writing manuals. It's all based on Lawrence Block's experience as a writer, editor and reader. You won't find any miracle cure for your manuscript in there, but it'll shine a new light on what you're doing.
People like Lawrence Block.
TELLING LIES FOR FUN AND PROFIT is a quirky writing advice book as half of it deals with breaking the myths of a writing career and that Mr. Block doesn't shy away from giving the circumstances of his success. None of the advice you will find in these are the typical crap you will find in writing manuals. It's all based on Lawrence Block's experience as a writer, editor and reader. You won't find any miracle cure for your manuscript in there, but it'll shine a new light on what you're doing.
March 12, 2020
I enjoy a touch of snarky, tongue-in-cheek, partially dry humor, and this book is full of it. Mr. Block doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable or ugly truths of the publishing world, but he shares them with both humility and fun offering mindset-shifting wisdom that writers will need to survive longterm. Full of broad stroke tips and practical thoughts for new and flailing authors, as well as for those who've been around the block a while and could use a reminder or two.
March 22, 2011
Awesome book. Love the writer's prayer at the end! Strangely comforting.
February 4, 2023
Published almost 30 years ago, Block’s words still ring true with timeless, helpful, down-to-earth advice on writing fiction.
Plus I loved the little drops of nostalgia in a time before the Internet was huge and accessible, when writing was banged out on a typewriter, words had to be looked up in the dictionary and facts confirmed by the encyclopedia.
The book explores a multitude of questions and concerns that many fiction writers have and Block’s advice was relatable and witty, at times making me laugh out loud. Recommended to anyone who has struggled to write fiction… it’s certainly harder than it looks!
Plus I loved the little drops of nostalgia in a time before the Internet was huge and accessible, when writing was banged out on a typewriter, words had to be looked up in the dictionary and facts confirmed by the encyclopedia.
The book explores a multitude of questions and concerns that many fiction writers have and Block’s advice was relatable and witty, at times making me laugh out loud. Recommended to anyone who has struggled to write fiction… it’s certainly harder than it looks!
November 22, 2020
A very good book to keep on shelf, and refer back to from time to time.
Read
October 27, 2024Dated, but still full of useful advice.
December 24, 2025
“Telling Lies for Fun & Profit” arrives with the plainspoken confidence of someone who has already done the hard part – which is to keep doing it. Lawrence Block does not write this manual as a priest of the Muse, nor as a professor with a syllabus to defend. He writes as a working novelist who has paid rent with sentences and has therefore learned, in the only way that matters, what helps and what doesn’t. The book’s title flirts with mischief, but the governing mood is steadier than it sounds: a craftsman’s candor, a professional’s skepticism, a faintly amused insistence that the only thing separating “writer” from “person who wants to write” is behavior.
The phrase “telling lies” is Block’s way of naming fiction without sanctifying it. He treats invention as a trade: honorable, difficult, occasionally absurd, and dependent on a stubborn willingness to show up. The “fun” is real but conditional. The “profit” is not promised. What is promised – and the book keeps this promise – is that a writer can replace fog with decisions. If you have ever looked at your own desire to write and found it both sincere and shapeless, Block’s first gift is to insist that shapelessness is not a personality, it is a solvable problem.
Part One, “The Liar’s Trade,” opens by asking the question that almost every how-to book dodges: What are you actually trying to do? The first chapter, “Setting Your Sights,” turns reading taste into a diagnostic instrument. Instead of urging you to “find your voice” in the abstract, Block suggests you pay attention to the books that already seize you – the ones you read greedily, the ones you finish, the ones you return to. Preference, he argues, is a map. Your appetite is evidence. This is not a poetic notion dressed as practicality; it is practicality with its poetry quietly intact. A writer who ignores his own pleasures is likely to produce work that feels like an obligation, and obligation is a fragile fuel.
The next step, in “Studying the Market,” is where many writers tense up, as if the very word “market” carries a faint odor of compromise. Block’s tone stays almost cheerfully unmoralistic. The market is not a corrupter of purity; it is the environment in which publication happens. Ignoring it does not protect your integrity – it merely guarantees surprises. He proposes an almost anthropological method: read with purpose, define categories through plot summaries, notice patterns, and learn how stories become recognizable without becoming identical. What he is really teaching is a way of looking: the ability to perceive structure without resenting it.
“Decisions, Decisions” sharpens the ethical edge of this pragmatism. Block refuses to pretend that art lives outside choice. Every story is a bundle of decisions: what to include, what to omit, where to place the camera, how to end, whom to satisfy, whom to disappoint. The chapter’s most bracing point is that refusing to decide is itself a decision – usually the one that produces soft, unfocused work that pleases nobody, including the writer. He offers a case study – “The Stepmother” – to show that craft is not magic but judgment: a series of small, consequential choices that accumulate into tone, meaning, and effect.
Then comes the book’s most insistent pivot: the argument for the novel. “Novel Approaches” and “Nothing Short of Novel” do not scold the short story, but they are frank about its limitations as a professional path and, more importantly, about what the novel teaches. A novel forces you to stay. It forces you to manage time, stamina, continuity, and doubt. Block’s advice here is deceptively modest. He talks about pages rather than inspiration, about the power of a small daily quota, about accumulating a book the way you accumulate a life – one ordinary day after another. It is difficult to read these chapters without feeling both challenged and oddly relieved. The challenge is obvious: the work is large. The relief is subtler: the work is also measurable.
If these chapters sometimes read like a sermon for long-form commitment, “Sunday Writers” introduces a necessary nuance. Block distinguishes between writing as vocation and writing as avocation without shaming either. Publication is not the only definition of success, and the unpublished work can carry its own rewards: freedom, privacy, experimentation without the pressure to monetize every impulse. Yet Block is too honest to let this become an excuse. He nudges the reader to ask whether the “Sunday writer” identity is a chosen form of balance or a polite name for fear. The question lands not as accusation but as a prod toward self-accuracy.
“Dear Joy,” written as advice to a young writer, gives the book one of its warmest passages. Block is skeptical of shortcuts, including the fantasy that a class or program can substitute for the long, ungainly apprenticeship of reading and writing. He recommends a broad education, a wider life, and an early acceptance that you become a writer not by declaring yourself one but by behaving like one. The letter form suits him. It allows him to be direct without becoming doctrinaire, and it shows his underlying generosity: he wants the young writer to build a life that can hold the work, not a pose that collapses under it.
“How to Read Like a Writer” is, in many respects, the book’s quiet centerpiece. Block describes a shift that happens almost against your will once you start writing seriously: you can no longer read innocently. The story becomes both pleasure and mechanism. He proposes “mental rewriting” – pausing to imagine alternative choices, sharpening your sense of why a scene works or fails. This is the sort of advice that can sound simplistic until you try it. Then you realize it is a discipline of attention, a way of turning reading into apprenticeship without killing delight. He is also, in his way, defending the reader. Reading like a writer is not merely a way to steal tricks; it is a way to respect the labor beneath the surface.
“Rolling With the Punches,” on rejection, is the chapter that most resembles a conversation with a friend who has already been through the worst and lived to joke about it. Block normalizes rejection so thoroughly that it begins to lose its theatrical power. Rejection is not a prophecy. It is paperwork. He advises submitting relentlessly, not as a macho posture but as a practical strategy: the fastest way to reduce the sting of any single rejection is to make it one of many. The deeper lesson is psychological hygiene. Separate your work from your worth. Learn to see refusal as part of the process rather than a referendum on the self.
Sue Grafton’s introduction, in the edition most readers now encounter, is more than a celebrity handshake. It places Block among writers who learned the business by doing it, and it primes the reader for a book that values repetition over revelation. Block’s own preface follows in the same key: fiction is a craft you can learn, but also a job that will ask for steadiness.
One of Block’s shrewdest habits is that he keeps returning the reader to self-knowledge without turning self-knowledge into therapy. What do you like to read? What can you tolerate writing? What are you willing to risk, and how do you behave when nobody is watching? These are not metaphysical questions; they are practical ones. A writer who cannot answer them will keep reinventing the same failure.
Even when the book talks about commerce, its deeper argument is about attention. “Studying the Market” is less a lesson in chasing trends than a lesson in seeing what is already there. If you summarize enough plots, you begin to perceive genre as a set of promises, and you learn how originality often lives inside constraint. Block’s phrase for this – the story that is “the same – only different” – is blunt, maybe even irritating, until you recognize it as a description of how most readers actually read.
The chapters on pen names and collaboration reveal Block’s aversion to purity tests. He is comfortable with strategy and with contingency. A pen name is not a trick; it is a solution to a problem, and it comes with its own costs. Collaboration is not a shortcut; it is a different machine, one that can amplify both compatibility and friction. In each case, Block’s interest is not moral scoring but sustainability: what helps you keep working, and what quietly makes you stop.
Read today, in a world of platforms and algorithms, the particulars sometimes date, but the psychology holds. The forms of rejection change; the sensation does not. The temptations of procrastination multiply; the mechanism is identical. Block’s counsel remains sturdy because it is built on the oldest obstacles: fear, vanity, impatience, confusion, and the mind’s endless ability to substitute preparation for action.
What Block rarely does is linger over the shimmering pleasures of language for its own sake. His intelligence is not anti-literary, but it is impatient with the idea that style can rescue an unfinished draft. This impatience can feel like a cold shower if you come to craft books searching for permission to be strange, lush, or formally reckless. Yet there is a hidden generosity in his restraint. By refusing to mystify the process, he leaves room for the reader’s particular strangeness to surface on the page, once the page exists.
The book’s title may suggest a wink, but the deeper metaphor is ethical: to “lie” well in fiction is to respect the reader’s intelligence and your own standards. Block keeps circling back to that respect. Workmanlike does not mean careless. Professional does not mean bloodless. It means you take the job seriously enough to do it again tomorrow.
And it is, finally, a book about beginnings – not the romantic beginning of “having an idea,” but the practical beginning of writing the next line. Block believes in the page a day because he believes in time, and he believes in time because he has lived through enough days to know how a book is actually made.
If the book has a weakness, it is the one that clings to many craft classics: its professional specifics belong to an earlier publishing ecology. Markets have shifted; submission pathways have multiplied; the economics of magazines and books have changed. But the most useful parts of Block’s advice are not transactional. They are behavioral. He is teaching you how to choose, how to aim, how to interpret rejection, how to show up. Those lessons translate across decades because they are built on human nature’s most stubborn constants.
There is also a limitation in the book’s scope. Block is not chiefly concerned with sentence-level style, with the lyric possibilities of language, or with the deeper philosophical arguments about what fiction ought to be. He is concerned with whether you will finish what you start. He writes as someone who believes that finishing is, in its own way, a kind of morality. For a reader who wants a more expansive meditation on art, this can feel narrow. Yet the narrowness is deliberate. Block is offering a tool, not a cathedral. And tools, when well made, have a way of outlasting cathedrals.
What makes “Telling Lies for Fun & Profit” endure is its tone – brisk, companionable, lightly amused, and allergic to self-deception. It contains no mystical pep talks, no grand claims that you are destined. It assumes you are a grown person with a life, a stack of worries, and a private longing to make something that will outlast the week. Block meets that longing with a set of habits and a way of thinking. The book is, finally, a manual for converting desire into work.
The most honest compliment one can pay it is that it does what good counsel should do: it reduces drama and increases agency. It is a slim book with an outsized capacity to restart a stalled writer again and again. You come away less dazzled and more capable. You also come away with the faintly bracing sense that the only thing left to do is to sit down and write. On that score, “Telling Lies for Fun & Profit” earns its rating of 83 out of 100 – not because it is flawless or exhaustive, but because it is reliably clarifying, and because clarity, for a writer, is a form of power, now.
The phrase “telling lies” is Block’s way of naming fiction without sanctifying it. He treats invention as a trade: honorable, difficult, occasionally absurd, and dependent on a stubborn willingness to show up. The “fun” is real but conditional. The “profit” is not promised. What is promised – and the book keeps this promise – is that a writer can replace fog with decisions. If you have ever looked at your own desire to write and found it both sincere and shapeless, Block’s first gift is to insist that shapelessness is not a personality, it is a solvable problem.
Part One, “The Liar’s Trade,” opens by asking the question that almost every how-to book dodges: What are you actually trying to do? The first chapter, “Setting Your Sights,” turns reading taste into a diagnostic instrument. Instead of urging you to “find your voice” in the abstract, Block suggests you pay attention to the books that already seize you – the ones you read greedily, the ones you finish, the ones you return to. Preference, he argues, is a map. Your appetite is evidence. This is not a poetic notion dressed as practicality; it is practicality with its poetry quietly intact. A writer who ignores his own pleasures is likely to produce work that feels like an obligation, and obligation is a fragile fuel.
The next step, in “Studying the Market,” is where many writers tense up, as if the very word “market” carries a faint odor of compromise. Block’s tone stays almost cheerfully unmoralistic. The market is not a corrupter of purity; it is the environment in which publication happens. Ignoring it does not protect your integrity – it merely guarantees surprises. He proposes an almost anthropological method: read with purpose, define categories through plot summaries, notice patterns, and learn how stories become recognizable without becoming identical. What he is really teaching is a way of looking: the ability to perceive structure without resenting it.
“Decisions, Decisions” sharpens the ethical edge of this pragmatism. Block refuses to pretend that art lives outside choice. Every story is a bundle of decisions: what to include, what to omit, where to place the camera, how to end, whom to satisfy, whom to disappoint. The chapter’s most bracing point is that refusing to decide is itself a decision – usually the one that produces soft, unfocused work that pleases nobody, including the writer. He offers a case study – “The Stepmother” – to show that craft is not magic but judgment: a series of small, consequential choices that accumulate into tone, meaning, and effect.
Then comes the book’s most insistent pivot: the argument for the novel. “Novel Approaches” and “Nothing Short of Novel” do not scold the short story, but they are frank about its limitations as a professional path and, more importantly, about what the novel teaches. A novel forces you to stay. It forces you to manage time, stamina, continuity, and doubt. Block’s advice here is deceptively modest. He talks about pages rather than inspiration, about the power of a small daily quota, about accumulating a book the way you accumulate a life – one ordinary day after another. It is difficult to read these chapters without feeling both challenged and oddly relieved. The challenge is obvious: the work is large. The relief is subtler: the work is also measurable.
If these chapters sometimes read like a sermon for long-form commitment, “Sunday Writers” introduces a necessary nuance. Block distinguishes between writing as vocation and writing as avocation without shaming either. Publication is not the only definition of success, and the unpublished work can carry its own rewards: freedom, privacy, experimentation without the pressure to monetize every impulse. Yet Block is too honest to let this become an excuse. He nudges the reader to ask whether the “Sunday writer” identity is a chosen form of balance or a polite name for fear. The question lands not as accusation but as a prod toward self-accuracy.
“Dear Joy,” written as advice to a young writer, gives the book one of its warmest passages. Block is skeptical of shortcuts, including the fantasy that a class or program can substitute for the long, ungainly apprenticeship of reading and writing. He recommends a broad education, a wider life, and an early acceptance that you become a writer not by declaring yourself one but by behaving like one. The letter form suits him. It allows him to be direct without becoming doctrinaire, and it shows his underlying generosity: he wants the young writer to build a life that can hold the work, not a pose that collapses under it.
“How to Read Like a Writer” is, in many respects, the book’s quiet centerpiece. Block describes a shift that happens almost against your will once you start writing seriously: you can no longer read innocently. The story becomes both pleasure and mechanism. He proposes “mental rewriting” – pausing to imagine alternative choices, sharpening your sense of why a scene works or fails. This is the sort of advice that can sound simplistic until you try it. Then you realize it is a discipline of attention, a way of turning reading into apprenticeship without killing delight. He is also, in his way, defending the reader. Reading like a writer is not merely a way to steal tricks; it is a way to respect the labor beneath the surface.
“Rolling With the Punches,” on rejection, is the chapter that most resembles a conversation with a friend who has already been through the worst and lived to joke about it. Block normalizes rejection so thoroughly that it begins to lose its theatrical power. Rejection is not a prophecy. It is paperwork. He advises submitting relentlessly, not as a macho posture but as a practical strategy: the fastest way to reduce the sting of any single rejection is to make it one of many. The deeper lesson is psychological hygiene. Separate your work from your worth. Learn to see refusal as part of the process rather than a referendum on the self.
Sue Grafton’s introduction, in the edition most readers now encounter, is more than a celebrity handshake. It places Block among writers who learned the business by doing it, and it primes the reader for a book that values repetition over revelation. Block’s own preface follows in the same key: fiction is a craft you can learn, but also a job that will ask for steadiness.
One of Block’s shrewdest habits is that he keeps returning the reader to self-knowledge without turning self-knowledge into therapy. What do you like to read? What can you tolerate writing? What are you willing to risk, and how do you behave when nobody is watching? These are not metaphysical questions; they are practical ones. A writer who cannot answer them will keep reinventing the same failure.
Even when the book talks about commerce, its deeper argument is about attention. “Studying the Market” is less a lesson in chasing trends than a lesson in seeing what is already there. If you summarize enough plots, you begin to perceive genre as a set of promises, and you learn how originality often lives inside constraint. Block’s phrase for this – the story that is “the same – only different” – is blunt, maybe even irritating, until you recognize it as a description of how most readers actually read.
The chapters on pen names and collaboration reveal Block’s aversion to purity tests. He is comfortable with strategy and with contingency. A pen name is not a trick; it is a solution to a problem, and it comes with its own costs. Collaboration is not a shortcut; it is a different machine, one that can amplify both compatibility and friction. In each case, Block’s interest is not moral scoring but sustainability: what helps you keep working, and what quietly makes you stop.
Read today, in a world of platforms and algorithms, the particulars sometimes date, but the psychology holds. The forms of rejection change; the sensation does not. The temptations of procrastination multiply; the mechanism is identical. Block’s counsel remains sturdy because it is built on the oldest obstacles: fear, vanity, impatience, confusion, and the mind’s endless ability to substitute preparation for action.
What Block rarely does is linger over the shimmering pleasures of language for its own sake. His intelligence is not anti-literary, but it is impatient with the idea that style can rescue an unfinished draft. This impatience can feel like a cold shower if you come to craft books searching for permission to be strange, lush, or formally reckless. Yet there is a hidden generosity in his restraint. By refusing to mystify the process, he leaves room for the reader’s particular strangeness to surface on the page, once the page exists.
The book’s title may suggest a wink, but the deeper metaphor is ethical: to “lie” well in fiction is to respect the reader’s intelligence and your own standards. Block keeps circling back to that respect. Workmanlike does not mean careless. Professional does not mean bloodless. It means you take the job seriously enough to do it again tomorrow.
And it is, finally, a book about beginnings – not the romantic beginning of “having an idea,” but the practical beginning of writing the next line. Block believes in the page a day because he believes in time, and he believes in time because he has lived through enough days to know how a book is actually made.
If the book has a weakness, it is the one that clings to many craft classics: its professional specifics belong to an earlier publishing ecology. Markets have shifted; submission pathways have multiplied; the economics of magazines and books have changed. But the most useful parts of Block’s advice are not transactional. They are behavioral. He is teaching you how to choose, how to aim, how to interpret rejection, how to show up. Those lessons translate across decades because they are built on human nature’s most stubborn constants.
There is also a limitation in the book’s scope. Block is not chiefly concerned with sentence-level style, with the lyric possibilities of language, or with the deeper philosophical arguments about what fiction ought to be. He is concerned with whether you will finish what you start. He writes as someone who believes that finishing is, in its own way, a kind of morality. For a reader who wants a more expansive meditation on art, this can feel narrow. Yet the narrowness is deliberate. Block is offering a tool, not a cathedral. And tools, when well made, have a way of outlasting cathedrals.
What makes “Telling Lies for Fun & Profit” endure is its tone – brisk, companionable, lightly amused, and allergic to self-deception. It contains no mystical pep talks, no grand claims that you are destined. It assumes you are a grown person with a life, a stack of worries, and a private longing to make something that will outlast the week. Block meets that longing with a set of habits and a way of thinking. The book is, finally, a manual for converting desire into work.
The most honest compliment one can pay it is that it does what good counsel should do: it reduces drama and increases agency. It is a slim book with an outsized capacity to restart a stalled writer again and again. You come away less dazzled and more capable. You also come away with the faintly bracing sense that the only thing left to do is to sit down and write. On that score, “Telling Lies for Fun & Profit” earns its rating of 83 out of 100 – not because it is flawless or exhaustive, but because it is reliably clarifying, and because clarity, for a writer, is a form of power, now.
February 13, 2014
“Don’t begin at the beginning; first things second. Spring forward in storytelling and fall back with backstory.” ~ Lawrence Block
This post might be more of interest to my writer friends or for folks who are thinking of starting a writing career. An author friend recommended a classic book entitled Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block. Block, who has written over 150 novels, leads us by the hand through the process of being a novel writer. If you’re looking for advice on plotting, characterization and structure, you may wish to look elsewhere. Telling Lies for Fun and Profit is more a book about the writing life rather than the mechanics of crafting a novel.
The book is a collection of columns that he wrote for various publications and include such themes as: studying the market, discovering your options as a writer, the question of slanting your writing for editors, writing a first novel, writing as an avocation, advice to a college writer, becoming a pro, how to read like a writer, coping with writer’s block, how to draw readers in close, distinguishing between a plot and an idea, point of view, self-discipline, creative procrastination, the trick of not beginning at the beginning, and much, much more.
This book is not only a treasure-house of information, it is an excellent at motivating yourself to write. It gets your juices flowing, your adrenaline pumping and generates enough excitement to get your butt off the couch and into the chair to write. What I really enjoyed about this book is the informal, friendly way he approached the reader. The conversational tone of the book made me feel as though I were reading a letter from an old friend who is offering some practical real-world advice. The book was rife with the author’s stories about his own experiences as a writer, gently guiding us with real-life examples yet urging us at the same time to write in our own unique voice.
Now this is not to say that there isn’t any information about the mechanics of writing for indeed, there is. He does provide practical tips for dialog, the proper use of strong verbs, rewriting, the use of adjectives and adverbs, surprise endings, locations/descriptions and creating plausible characters, just to mention a few; but each topic is peppered with his personal experiences as a writer.
If you are looking for a book about the process of writing, the writer’s life or simply looking for motivation to start or finish your novel, you can’t do much better than Telling Lies for Fun & Profit.
- Post originally appeared on my blog at: http://rogerhyttinen.com/2014/02/13/t...
This post might be more of interest to my writer friends or for folks who are thinking of starting a writing career. An author friend recommended a classic book entitled Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block. Block, who has written over 150 novels, leads us by the hand through the process of being a novel writer. If you’re looking for advice on plotting, characterization and structure, you may wish to look elsewhere. Telling Lies for Fun and Profit is more a book about the writing life rather than the mechanics of crafting a novel.
The book is a collection of columns that he wrote for various publications and include such themes as: studying the market, discovering your options as a writer, the question of slanting your writing for editors, writing a first novel, writing as an avocation, advice to a college writer, becoming a pro, how to read like a writer, coping with writer’s block, how to draw readers in close, distinguishing between a plot and an idea, point of view, self-discipline, creative procrastination, the trick of not beginning at the beginning, and much, much more.
This book is not only a treasure-house of information, it is an excellent at motivating yourself to write. It gets your juices flowing, your adrenaline pumping and generates enough excitement to get your butt off the couch and into the chair to write. What I really enjoyed about this book is the informal, friendly way he approached the reader. The conversational tone of the book made me feel as though I were reading a letter from an old friend who is offering some practical real-world advice. The book was rife with the author’s stories about his own experiences as a writer, gently guiding us with real-life examples yet urging us at the same time to write in our own unique voice.
Now this is not to say that there isn’t any information about the mechanics of writing for indeed, there is. He does provide practical tips for dialog, the proper use of strong verbs, rewriting, the use of adjectives and adverbs, surprise endings, locations/descriptions and creating plausible characters, just to mention a few; but each topic is peppered with his personal experiences as a writer.
If you are looking for a book about the process of writing, the writer’s life or simply looking for motivation to start or finish your novel, you can’t do much better than Telling Lies for Fun & Profit.
- Post originally appeared on my blog at: http://rogerhyttinen.com/2014/02/13/t...
December 26, 2015
Almost finished reading this awesome, informative book after only a few weeks. (Would've been sooner if I weren't reading so many other writing books!) I've already read Block's previous book on writing "Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print" and was very impressed with his style and advice, so I decided this book was likely to be a good read as well; I haven't been disappointed.
So far I'm nearly to the 3rd section of the book which deals with writing as "Fiction as Craft," and my favorite section thus far has been the first which deals with "Fiction as a Profession." Reading this book has been as if Block was teaching me one on one; like we're sitting across from each other in comfy high-back chairs just having casual conversation about the ins and outs of writing.
Block has great wit and I found myself rolling with laughter at certain portions of the text. I particularly like the way he uses the "frame" of a classroom, addressing the readers as his students—even calling them by name at times.
If you like books on writing, you'll definitely benefit from Block's "Telling Lies for Fun & Profit." I know I'll be going back to it more than once as I continue my journey on the fiction path.
P.S. The introduction by Sue Grafton is a great addition since it gives us an insight into the woes of even the most professional writers.
So far I'm nearly to the 3rd section of the book which deals with writing as "Fiction as Craft," and my favorite section thus far has been the first which deals with "Fiction as a Profession." Reading this book has been as if Block was teaching me one on one; like we're sitting across from each other in comfy high-back chairs just having casual conversation about the ins and outs of writing.
Block has great wit and I found myself rolling with laughter at certain portions of the text. I particularly like the way he uses the "frame" of a classroom, addressing the readers as his students—even calling them by name at times.
If you like books on writing, you'll definitely benefit from Block's "Telling Lies for Fun & Profit." I know I'll be going back to it more than once as I continue my journey on the fiction path.
P.S. The introduction by Sue Grafton is a great addition since it gives us an insight into the woes of even the most professional writers.
March 20, 2012
I've seen Telling Lies for Fun and Profit on many aspiring writer's reference lists. I stumbled across a copy at Half Price books and decided to give it a whirl. I've read some of Block's fiction: books from the Scudder series and a few Kellers. I found his work to be diverting, but a little dry(I'm more a fan of his contemporaries Donald Westlake or Elmore Leonard). This isn't the worst book I've read on writing, nor is it the best. The book is divided into 4 or 5 sections. Telling Lies is a collection of Writer's Digest articles compiled into book form. It's a bit dated and some technology references will have some of the younger folk scratching their heads or running to wikipedia. Block starts out strong with witty and interesting in section one, but around section two, I wondered why so many esteem his book. To be honest, I felt the time I spent reading sections one and two, should have been spent writing. My recommendation, should you decide to read Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, is to read sections three and four. These are the sections on craft, the most useful, and very well written.
June 20, 2015
Lawrence Block wrote a monthly column for Writer's Digest magazine for 14 years in the 1970's and 80's. They have all been collected now into 4 books:
1. Telling Lies for Fun and Profit
2. Spider, Spin Me a Web
3. The Liar's Bible
4. The Liar's Companion
No subject is off limits for Block. From lofty questions (how do writers get their ideas?) to the mundane (how many pages should you write every day?) to the personal (how often should writers exercise? how should writers budget their money?), the advice is practical, funny, and never boring.
I do not have a desire to be an author, but these glimpses into the writing life fascinated me.
I preferred Liar's Bible and Liar's Companion because they presented the columns in chronological order. The other two volumes group entries by topic, which was fine but tended to feel repetitive at times.
1. Telling Lies for Fun and Profit
2. Spider, Spin Me a Web
3. The Liar's Bible
4. The Liar's Companion
No subject is off limits for Block. From lofty questions (how do writers get their ideas?) to the mundane (how many pages should you write every day?) to the personal (how often should writers exercise? how should writers budget their money?), the advice is practical, funny, and never boring.
I do not have a desire to be an author, but these glimpses into the writing life fascinated me.
I preferred Liar's Bible and Liar's Companion because they presented the columns in chronological order. The other two volumes group entries by topic, which was fine but tended to feel repetitive at times.
August 23, 2009
A lot of great and useful stuff in this pretty old book on writing. It is a series of articles that Block wrote for Writer's Digest and he has adapted them and put them in themed sections and provided some continuity between each. Very light and entertaining, but useful for anyone who likes to think about making his or her writing better. Of particular value to me were the twin aphorisms "First things second" and "Spring forward, fall back." I have applied things that he suggests to better effect in my own writing already.
April 7, 2017
A collection of columns written for Writers Digest, this is one of the best books I have read - covering both some interesting points of the business of writing (why should I or not use a penname?) and the finer points of the writing itself ("Why shouldn't I write this way?" he ejaculated.)
Chuckle-out-loud funny in places and always engaging, this is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the craft of fiction writing.
Chuckle-out-loud funny in places and always engaging, this is a must-read for anyone with an interest in the craft of fiction writing.
January 4, 2009
This is a fantastic book on writing structure and style, but it's also just a really good read, Block is funny and breezy and entertaining. Probably my favorite book on writing that I read back when I was trying to hone my craft a little for the purposes of reviewing and casual writing.
January 31, 2012
The bomb went off, and I lost my digital way, but fortunately the library system if forgiving and I was finally able to finish this book.
May 3, 2019
I don’t read a great many non-fiction books these days – I’m getting old now, life seems too short to wind myself up with information that’s likely to confirm my jaded worldview. But I’ve had Telling Lies for Fun and Profit for a while, and recently it jumped off the high shelf at me. I’m a great admirer of much of Lawrence Block’s fictional work, particularly the Matt Scudder mysteries: he has a real conversational gift-of-the-gab that immediately immerses you in his (usually NYC) milieu and makes reading almost anything by him a real page-turning pleasure. Telling Lies for Fun and Profit is a how-to guide for wannabe and aspiring writers, and like many failed novelists, I have any number of these littering my bookcases, most of them partly-read. This is generally because they tend to be interspersed with suggested writing exercises, and this kind of reminds me of when I used to watch The Big Match on Sunday afternoons as a kid, and immediately wanted to go out and play football instead of watching Derby draw 0-0 with Stoke, even though I had no-one to play with – long story short, the book gets put down and forgotten about. But Telling Lies for Fun and Profit contains very few exercises, if any – there are two or three lightly suggested ones toward the end, but that really is it. Instead, there’s the subtext, just do it, what are you waiting for, and as such it’s a quietly inspiring read, delivered in short, punchy chapters, originally published as monthly columns in Writer’s Digest magazine. The only other how-to book I can think to compare it with is Steven Pressfield’s equally excellent The War of Art, or Stephen King’s On Writing.
Block does eventually get into the detailed mechanics of novel-writing – the inciting incident, the twin reversals of fortune, conflict and resolution, character building, the mid-point crisis, all that stuff – but they’re largely absent from the first half of the book, although he does make slanted references to them from time to time; but when he does get to them, he delivers a veritable masterclass. I was reminded of learning them at college, thinking dejectedly of how they had ruined all literature for me as they took most of the surprise out of whatever I was reading, much like when I tried to learn bass guitar to my favourite pop records, and never listened to music in quite the same way again; when I related this a playwriting tutor, I received the response, tell me about it, so it isn't just me. Block mention this in Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, but suggests that over time it’s only served to heighten his participation in the reading experience, something I have to agree with – all in all, he’s a wise old goat, and somebody you might do well to listen to if you’re just starting out, or if you’re not. I am a fool for in-order chronology, so something that was of particular interest to me was the trick of reversing the first and second chapters, in order to start with the action and provide the reader with an immediate hook; but there’s a whole lot more than that in here.
Telling Lies for Fun and Profit is also quite old, copyrighted as 1981 in my edition with an updated introduction from 1994 (he’s penned another how-to, very contemporary, Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel, which you should also check out), and as such it should really seem dated, with its references to blue pencils and typewriter ribbons, and its complete lack of the same regarding blogging and MS Word, but it really doesn’t, because the essential information is timeless: just get on with it, develop a discipline, get used to rejection, here are the mechanics. I’m very glad that I picked it up again. Four stars.
Block does eventually get into the detailed mechanics of novel-writing – the inciting incident, the twin reversals of fortune, conflict and resolution, character building, the mid-point crisis, all that stuff – but they’re largely absent from the first half of the book, although he does make slanted references to them from time to time; but when he does get to them, he delivers a veritable masterclass. I was reminded of learning them at college, thinking dejectedly of how they had ruined all literature for me as they took most of the surprise out of whatever I was reading, much like when I tried to learn bass guitar to my favourite pop records, and never listened to music in quite the same way again; when I related this a playwriting tutor, I received the response, tell me about it, so it isn't just me. Block mention this in Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, but suggests that over time it’s only served to heighten his participation in the reading experience, something I have to agree with – all in all, he’s a wise old goat, and somebody you might do well to listen to if you’re just starting out, or if you’re not. I am a fool for in-order chronology, so something that was of particular interest to me was the trick of reversing the first and second chapters, in order to start with the action and provide the reader with an immediate hook; but there’s a whole lot more than that in here.
Telling Lies for Fun and Profit is also quite old, copyrighted as 1981 in my edition with an updated introduction from 1994 (he’s penned another how-to, very contemporary, Writing the Novel from Plot to Print to Pixel, which you should also check out), and as such it should really seem dated, with its references to blue pencils and typewriter ribbons, and its complete lack of the same regarding blogging and MS Word, but it really doesn’t, because the essential information is timeless: just get on with it, develop a discipline, get used to rejection, here are the mechanics. I’m very glad that I picked it up again. Four stars.
May 28, 2018
I've had my eye on this book for a while and when my children gifted me with a bookstore gift card for Mother's day, accurately measuring how much more valuable than flowers I would find it, one of my acquisitions was this manual. I have admired Block for quite some time and the addition of a forward by my favorite author, the late and dearly missed Sue Grafton, made this book an obvious addition to my TBR list. The book did not disappoint.
Block's book bears many similarities with other writing manuals but is by no means a clone of other attempts. This book is a compilation of Mr. Block's columns on fiction writing for Writer's Digest magazine. For those unfamiliar with the publication, it is aimed toward aspiring writers seeking publication. Lest there be any confusion, some people write only for the sake of writing or for their own enjoyment. This manual does deal with the art of writing, but the focus of the first part of the book unabashedly points to the business aspects of writing for a living, including studying the market.
Later sections focus on the craft itself from crafting dialogue to choosing character names. Some chapters are structured in a question and answer format which subscribers to Block's newsletter will find familiar.
Some of the advice in this book will seem familiar. Grafton points out in her introduction that she was certain some of those ideas had been her own. If the pointers seem like common sense or repeated affirmations, accept that consensus may prove the point and allow Block to affirm your intuitions.
While much of the topics covered echo the topics covered in other manuals, Block deviates from the standards on at least one point--that of revision. I won't spoil it for you by spelling it out here. I will state, however, that I found comfort in his approach which involves a great deal of mental work.
I highly recommend this book to writers of fiction regardless of genre as well as to readers of fiction who are interested in the craft.
Block's book bears many similarities with other writing manuals but is by no means a clone of other attempts. This book is a compilation of Mr. Block's columns on fiction writing for Writer's Digest magazine. For those unfamiliar with the publication, it is aimed toward aspiring writers seeking publication. Lest there be any confusion, some people write only for the sake of writing or for their own enjoyment. This manual does deal with the art of writing, but the focus of the first part of the book unabashedly points to the business aspects of writing for a living, including studying the market.
Later sections focus on the craft itself from crafting dialogue to choosing character names. Some chapters are structured in a question and answer format which subscribers to Block's newsletter will find familiar.
Some of the advice in this book will seem familiar. Grafton points out in her introduction that she was certain some of those ideas had been her own. If the pointers seem like common sense or repeated affirmations, accept that consensus may prove the point and allow Block to affirm your intuitions.
While much of the topics covered echo the topics covered in other manuals, Block deviates from the standards on at least one point--that of revision. I won't spoil it for you by spelling it out here. I will state, however, that I found comfort in his approach which involves a great deal of mental work.
I highly recommend this book to writers of fiction regardless of genre as well as to readers of fiction who are interested in the craft.
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