Write Like the Masters
Jun. 4th, 2010 12:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliWrite Like the Masters by William Cane
Which picks apart various authors' works and describes their lives -- some trivia, but a good bit about how they actually wrote.
Has a good number of interesting tricks of the trade. He's a little too fond of using Jungian analysis and tell you to use it too, and tell you to draw your characters from real life; both tricks, BTW, that simply vanish when the use he is talking about doesn't apply, as when discussing Edgar Rice Burroughs's characters. Action and adventure, character change and how little you need, emotional tags, exaggeration -- all sorts of tricks described in here.
He warns up front that useful piece of advice: becoming a writer will change how you read. Forever. And in fact, this book will hurry it up a bit, since it shows you how to dissect the books instead of just reading them. So it's not only the techniques you learn here, but those you can pick up using the tools you can learn here and take to slice up other books with.
Which picks apart various authors' works and describes their lives -- some trivia, but a good bit about how they actually wrote.
Has a good number of interesting tricks of the trade. He's a little too fond of using Jungian analysis and tell you to use it too, and tell you to draw your characters from real life; both tricks, BTW, that simply vanish when the use he is talking about doesn't apply, as when discussing Edgar Rice Burroughs's characters. Action and adventure, character change and how little you need, emotional tags, exaggeration -- all sorts of tricks described in here.
He warns up front that useful piece of advice: becoming a writer will change how you read. Forever. And in fact, this book will hurry it up a bit, since it shows you how to dissect the books instead of just reading them. So it's not only the techniques you learn here, but those you can pick up using the tools you can learn here and take to slice up other books with.