Tools of the Trade

[temporus]

I've been having an email discussion with a friend about writing.  He came to me seeking some help, and I hope I was able to give him a little bit of useful advice.  But I'm one person, with only so much experience and advice to reliably dispense.  And because I think there is something useful about the question in general, I think appealing to a wider audience for assistance is a good idea.

To sum up what he wanted to know:

How can a writer learn about the specific tools and techniques that are so commonly discussed as "going into our tool-bag."

What brought on the question was hearing some director's commentary, where the director (in this case Joss Whedon) discusses specific techniques used at various moments in the story.  If one composes music, there is a large amount of musical theory one can learn (formally, or perhaps informally) to become a better composer.  If one plays an instrument, there are specific skills one can train in.  As I understand it, he'd like to know where to look for theory and techniques for writing fiction.

I have mentioned the following:  practice, writer's workshops, reading, critiquing other work.

So, does anyone have other recommendations or ideas?  Specific books about theory, or websites about techniques?  All ideas/advice welcome.

Comments

[ogre-san.livejournal.com]

Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. Not that it or any set of instructions should be followed blindly, but anyone who wants to write would do themselves a favor by reading that book.

[ogre-san.livejournal.com]

For sf and fantasy writes especially, I'll add a couple more: The Language of the Night by Ursula Le Guin and Touch Magic by Jane Yolen.

[temporus.livejournal.com]

Great selections. I intend to make up a list of all the various writing books I've read or own. Some are more genre specific, and others more general. But these last two are ones I don't have. So I'll have to see about tracking them down myself.

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

Well, emphasize practice three or four more times. It's the only way to really learn how to do things right, because no matter how much workshopping, critiquing, and reading a writer does he/she isn't going to grow if he/she doesn't try to apply the lessons from there in his/her own writing. I'm pretty sure I never really got the hang of writing until I started working on Bailo's crap draft, which got me into a regular, disciplined writing habit for the first time in my life.

BTW, Vision and other e-zines can be a cheap alternative for getting a grounding in the basic theory of writing. You might also tell your friend to search the Web for the "Snowflake Method"--it doesn't work for me but it works for many others, so it must have some merit.

[temporus.livejournal.com]

I think, though perhaps am mistaken, its more along the lines of understanding and learning about various techniques.

Just as an example: Point of View. What are the various types of point of view? Why would you use them? What does it do to your story to have it take place in first person? Third? Second?

That's pretty simplistic, but I believe that is along the lines of what he was looking for.

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

Well, Vision has a lot of those.

Some Suggestions

[ryumaou.livejournal.com]

In Books: The Elements of Fiction Writing series published by Writer's Digest; How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card, World Building by Stephen Gillett; Aliens and Alien Societies by Stanley Schmidt; The Writer's Guide to Building a Science Fiction Universe by George Ochoa and Jeffery Osier; and The Writer's Idea Book by Jack Heffron. Also, whoever is selling currently in fantasy or sci-fi or whatever genre you're writing in. It helps to know what's out there so that your work doesn't seem like a cheap copy of someone else's popular work.

But, earlier comments about simple practice are very true, too. Write, write, and then write some more. I don't remember who said it, but most of what anyone writes is crap and you have to write out all the crap before the gold starts to spin. Sad, but true.