Noble's Book of Writing Blunders and How to Avoid Them

by Bill Noble

Stay away from prose that is static, dusty, or too formal! Learn to energize your writing and make your words come alive! Author William Noble shows you that some of the worst mistakes come from sticking too closely to the rules. By learning which rules are okay to ignore, you will be able to remedy your errors and create the kind of writing that makes fiction and nonfiction stories crackle with life. Inside, Noble identifies the blunders most common to every writer, beginning or advanced and demonstrates how to correct your mistake and avoid it in the future. By avoiding these common pitfalls, you can begin to improve your writing today!

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

184 pages, Hardcover

First published December 14, 2006

Reviews

[Daniel Godfrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saw this one on a bookshelf, bookmarked with a receipt (two items, no titles) from the town our grandmother lived in, which is probably where it came from. Used to write her, especially emails, to keep in touch. (My eye still twitches if you ask me to make a long-distance call because of the perceived expense.) Although this is a book about rules, it has in places her "take with a grain of salt" attitude toward them.

Here are several other themes I saw in the book:

Use the expressiveness of the English language to your advantage. One of the most helpful, taking-this-to-my-grave pieces of advice in here is to understand the words being used. To assess if a word is suitable, look it up in the dictionary and understand its roots, history and language-of-origin, and different uses and meanings. One time I looked up the difference between aberration and deviation to understand why an author chose one over the other. Both words mean a departure from normalcy, but aberration carries more a sense of having drifted or wandered off, as over time. I've found this tip brings a whole new layer of meaning to what I read and write.

Mix it up to keep your audience engaged. Definitely more aware of variations in how long my sentences and paragraphs are now.

How style impacts your writing and the audience. Many helpful tips in here about how to set the mood with style. Short, punchy, active-voice sentences up the tempo. Longer, drawn-out sentences, using passive voice, lower the temperature and settle the reader down into a more relaxed state. The author's stance tends to be "your style should be consonant with your content," so I am curious if there are examples that use dissonance successfully.

Use style with purpose. The author encourages writing imaginatively but, at the same time, having an intention behind one's stylistic decisions; he dissuades readers from being "tricky and jazzy" for the sake of it.

Don't overdo it. Variety is good and overusing any technique is bad. I'm guilty. There was a time I would come up with a thesis for a paper and try to make everything I wrote for that paper point back to it. It worked a couple of times, but other times it made my writing formulaic and extravagant.

There are plenty of examples in the book. Sometimes the author illustrated his point with his writing: In a chapter about italics, he might use actual italics to demonstrate what he wanted to get across. Writing samples chosen for critique were usually clear, although I had trouble seeing what was problematic with a few "do not do" examples. Examples I felt I understood best were from the author's own experiences.

This is a neat book about how to write effectively, using style to enhance your message and its delivery.

[Carrie Daws · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could recommend only one book to new and aspiring writers, this would probably be it. I love the author's common sense approach--learn the rules, but don't follow them absolutely. The rules of grammar and style should be applied only when they improve our writing. In each chapter, he talks about when the rule is good and when it's constricting, when the rule makes sense and when it should be broken.

[Heather Jacobsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great advice for beginners, and great reminders for those more experienced. It is, itself, a well-written book. Not too dry, and even compelling at times. I highly recommend.

[Austin Malone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Neat little primer on basic grammar, structure, and style.

[Hannah Mason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Noble's Book of Writing Blunders was one of the good writing aid books. In my limited time of reading writing aid books, I have read those that are excellent, pointing out all the flaws I never noticed before and I have read those that are terrible noting "flaws" I see every day in novels (and enjoy seeing) or flaws I already knew I had. Noble had some of all three on his list but most were ones I didn't know about or already knew I had. While his examples were terrible (often pointing out the opposite of his point), his "blunders" were good things to keep in mind and his cute little book might be one to add to the collection.

[Jacqui · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this when I'd finished the other books I purchased on how to self-edit (Self-editing for Fiction Writers, How to Write the D*** Good Novel). It's summary had good ideas, things like Don't write for your eighty-grade teacher, Don't complicate the obvious, Don't add adverbs and adjectives to prettify your prose. Common sense reminders of what I should know but sometimes forget in the flurry of my own prose. After spending an hour with it, I decided the best ideas were the list on the dustcover and beyond the title, there wasn't much else to learn.

These sound good, don't they:

* Don't Passify Your Verb Voice
* Don't Repeat Without Relevance
* Don't be Afraid to Make Your Own Rules

All writers who haven't made a name for themselves, and with that name garnered the right to write as they please, must follow enough good writing rules that an agent will read their mss. I can add a few more to that list--Show not Tell, Beware the Gerund.

When I opened the book, I found that the other writing blunders in the Table of Contents weren't as obvious from their title. Look at these:

* Don't be a slave to the grammar guru. The only time to ignore grammar is in dialogue.
* Don't write the perfect paragraph. I didn't have to read that one to know where he was headed
* Don't sprinkle the poet's urge over the narrator's product. I get that one too--and I've abused it. But then, I grew into my writing, decided to leave poetry for others.

Here's what I'm trying to say: The book has good tips, but he takes a long time to make them. I got them more succinctly in other books, long ago in my career. I dont' think that means I no longer need help. I think it means I need a different kind of help.

The best list of self-edit tips I've ever found is in the Marshall Plan. They're brief, more like reminders than missives, and all very (very) important.

[Austin Neaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Writing Blunders - and how to avoid them" by William Noble is a collection of 29 essays on the most common writing mistakes.

It's one of the better writing books I've read. Each essay is short (around 6 pages). This is helpful because the writer makes his point, gives examples, and explains how to correct the mistake.

There are several great points about this book (that impacted me). Here they are:

1. Writing is as much about hearing what you've written as it is about seeing what you've written. In other words, readers vocalize what they read in their head. Rhythm and sound matter and will keep the reader from slamming a book shut. This book shows you ways to improve the "sound" of your writing.

2. Words and Grammar are tools that a writer uses to make his point and link points into a cohesive story. Choosing which words and grammar tools to use and understanding how this will influence the reader is the mark of a good writer. This advice is given throughout the novel and discussed with a variety of examples.

3. This book encourages you to not be stifled by grammar. In fact, the last essay in the book is entitled "Don't Be Afraid to Make Your Own Rules." If we all wrote the same, there would be nothing special about the written word.

I would give this book 8 out of 10 (10 being great). It's better than most writing books.

Originally reviewed on my blog at http://www.AustinJamesHere.blogspot.com

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each of the 29 blunders was covered in a chapter of 4-7 pages, which was long enough to address the issue and not too long as to make me close the book and not pick it back up. These blunders were basic, but the way he wrote about each one took it one step further. He didn’t only address point of view, slang, cliques, but also how each was perceived by the reader. Many of the blunders in this book he blames on laziness by the writer, but I also think a beginning writer faces the challenges he lays out. Some of the chapters overlapped in content, but, for the most part, it was good.

This book is written for the fiction writer. He differentiates between the fiction narrative and journalism and how the rules for one are not the same as for the other. These blunders are all about building tension in your story and keeping the reader invested in your book.

there's more on my blog http://stacybuckeye.wordpress.com/200...

[Mangy Cat]

I had to shelve this one because there are a lot of things in it that either 1. I know already; or 2. I don't agree with. :oP There are much better writing resources out there.

Noble's Book of Writing Blunders seems like Writers Digest's attempt at producing their version of "The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes" by Jack Bickham (which is excellent, by the way).

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

best little book about writing ever; concise and to the point, the one book no aspiring writer should be without