Writer Series: Help! For Writers: 210 Solutions to the Problems Every Writer Faces by Roy Peter Clark

Do you remember that moment; the moment when you were struck with the sudden burning desire to write?  With an unmatched enthusiasm and joy you jumped right in with both feet.  But at some point during the writing process things changed.  Your burning desire cooled, your enthusiasm fizzled and the joy you once possessed vanished.  You became bogged down and overwhelmed.  It was all you could do to keep your head above water as you struggled to not sink underneath the enormity of your undertaking.  Where could you find a life line you wondered?  Is there someone out there who can understand your plight?   These are the types of situations that led Roy Peter Clark to create his Help! For Writers; a life preserver in times of desperation and a compass to chart a new course.

 

Known as “America’s writing coach” Roy Peter Clark has a Ph.D. in English, specializing in medieval literature and started teaching writing in 1977 when he was hired by St. Petersburg Times.  In 1979 he joined the journalism school, Poynter Institute, and has risen through the ranks as director of the writing center, dean of the faculty, senior scholar and vice president.  He is the author of multiple books in both fiction and nonfiction, but is best known for his books on journalism and writing.  Some of his contributions to the world of writing include; "Writing Tools," "The Glamour of Grammar," and “Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer”.  He has served several times as a juror for the Pulitzer prize committee and has been featured on NPR, Oprah and the Today show.  He is also on iTunesU and has had his podcasts downloaded over a million times, talk about popular.  Both a teacher and writer with credibility to back him up, not a bad combination.

In Help! For Writers, recommended by my dear mother-in-law who is on her own grand voyage of writing self-discovery and craft development, Clark addresses basic issues in all of the seven steps of the writing process from formulation to creation to completion.  This book is perfect for the beginning writer or the veteran looking to iron out some wrinkles.  It is a quick, non-taxing read with plenty of food for thought.  The subjects are far ranging and the suggestions are simply laid out and doable and at times highly creative.  I especially enjoyed the part about finding inspiration and how to work with an assignment.

The writing itself, however, is rather dry and not particularly engaging.  Though that should in no way diminish the usefulness of the information or its ability to effectively solve issues.  It should also probably be noted that I personally tend to suffer from the millennial curse of constant need for entertainment (what can I say, we all have our own issues) so that definitely affects my perspective.  Also this book does tend to lean toward the nonfiction side of writing, but a fiction writer shouldn’t completely dismiss it, a lot of writing issues are fairly universal.

The writing voyage can be fraught with storms, rocky seas and hidden undertows, but the true writer who believes in the power of their craft can find Help!, they just have to willing to look for it.

Terrier by Tamora Pierce ★★★★☆

Tamora Pierce at her best!

Fiction – YA – High Fantasy/Mystery

Age Range: 12 and up Grade Level: 7 and up

582 pages

Publication Date:  October 24th 2006

Beka Cooper #1

Literary Awards:  Mythopoeic Fantasy Award Nominee for Children's Literature (2012), West Australian Young Readers' Book Award (WAYRBA) for Older Readers (2009), ALA's Top Ten Best Books Nominee for Young Adults (2007)

The lower city of Corus is rookie, Beka Cooper’s, new beat with the Provost’s Guard.  Even with her magical powers of hearing the voices of the dead she will have to rely on her friends and her own tenacity to “dog” after the Shadow Snake, a villain who steals and sometimes kills children for what they want,  and investigate who is killing for fire opals.

I have reread this book many times and still never tire of it.  The diary format really works well for this engrossing double crime mystery.  And I have to say I admire Ms. Pierce for branching out. The introduction written by other characters creates a great back story and links it to the other Tortall books.  And as a story about underbelly of Tortall as opposed to the nobles, the place and characters come alive through Beka’s eyes with a gritty honesty.  Beka Cooper is a realistic heroine even with her magical abilities.  She is strong, has integrity, observant of her surroundings and above all compassionate.  The secondary charaters like; Clary Goodwin, Mattes Tunstall, Pounce, and Rosto the Piper are all in themselves well rounded out and life like.

This is Tamora Pierce at her best.  A well-constructed story, fantastically balanced between plot, characters and action with a polished writing style I truly envy. It is exciting without losing the characters and well layered.  Each scene adds some aspect of the story, whether it be character or plot.  This story while nicely woven into Tortall’s history, by itself is rich and textured with a mythology somewhat branching out from the other books.  It could definitely be read as a stand-alone.  The glossary extras at the end plus the map at the beginning really helps ( I know I’ve said it before , but I will say it again, I wished more sci-Fi and fantasy books had them).  Frankly, I can’t think of anything that could improve it.

God bless computer repairmen the world over!  My data was saved and I will post Terrier this week.

Whymsy

Writer Series: The Comic Toolbox: How to Be Funny Even If You're Not by John Vorhaus

Whether it is the slapstick comedy of a Stephanie Plum novel, the clever witticism of any of the Jasper Fforde books or even the more middle school humor of Dave Barry, if done properly, humor can be a very useful and fun tool.  It highlights ideas, gives lifeblood to a story, and makes characters likeable and interesting.  The unfortunate thing is that with writing it is completely up to the reader’s imagination and ability to get the joke.  Without any visual clues, voice pitch or back and forth interaction something you thought was hilarious could fall flat, be misinterpreted or be viewed as trying too hard.  Those consequences can make us hesitate to interject that healthy dose of comedy into our writing, but thankfully, for those of us wavering there is hope.  Our redeeming grace is that comedy, like any other tool in a writer’s arsenal, is a skill that can be dissected and developed.  Because of The Comic Toolbox freedom is within our grasp.   We the writing masses can be liberated from bad jokes, throw off the shackles of lame humor and get out from under the yoke of hesitation.  

I first came across The Comic Toolbox when it was recommended in one of my writing classes.  Vorhaus’s story structure (found in chapter 7) was suggested as a worksheet to help construct a synopsis, and I have personally found it a really great device for developing storylines, especially since I favor fill-in-the-blank story creation.  So when I sat down to read this book, my highlighter poised and ready, and my pen and paper handy to write down brilliant insights bestowed on me by the comic alchemist, as John Vorhaus calls himself, I had every intention of being funnier by the end of my journey.  And as it turns out I had plenty of chances to use my highlighter, though whether or not I am funnier is a matter of opinion.  Personally, I thought I was pretty dang hilarious before I started the book, so I can only imagine how great I am now.  And my imagination is probably the safest place for my comic talent to remain (I wouldn’t want to overwhelm anybody with my greatness).

I felt pretty safe in John Vorhaus’s enthusiastic hands, not only because this book is so well known, but also for the rest of his resume.  He has worked in more than 30 countries for production companies, film schools, television networks and as a consultant on the development of scripts and television series.  Some of his own credits include Married… with Children, Head of the Class, The Sentinel, and The Flash.  He is a member of the Writers Guild of America with over a dozen books to his credit.  With teaching stints at Northwestern University, the American Film Institute and the Writers Program of the UCLA Extension he is no stranger to actually teaching real live people to use his methods, always helpful.

John Vorhaus expertly breaks down comedy into individual elements before showing how to combine and utilize them to hopefully create the desired effect.  The expressively-written chapters are of a reasonable length with exercises directly interjected into the body of the text.  Being published in 1994, does mean his examples are a bit dated and while I understood most of them some were a little too old for me to get.  The important part, though, is that I still understood the point he was trying to make (but really the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Taxi were kind of old even in ’94 … I’m just saying).  There is a lot of information to take in during the course of this book and I did have to work at staying on topic as I made my way through it, but I think it is worth the effort.   

With Vorhaus’s help I learned not to find the idea of creating humor so overwhelming and to add extra levels to my creative process.  He does a thorough job explaining his techniques and uses formulas and step-by-step instructions to give the reader a chance to emulate them, which I love because the application part is generally the hard one for me.  My hope is that by employing these tools, my writing can be more engaging and multidimensional.  I mean, who doesn’t want to be funny?  Also a lot of his points are not just for comedy, but can be applied to universal storytelling and used to help produce impactful writing.

One of the biggest immediate rewards of this book was using the techniques to break down one of my favorite sitcoms, The Big Bang Theory.  I felt rather clever when I could identify the mechanics of the process, which means I could grasp more of the information than I expected.  Raising Hope will be my next effort; you know for “educational” reasons and not just because I like it (guess who gets to be Queen-of-the-Remote for a while).  But truthfully, a real life application of these new tools is something I am going to have to work at layering in, and I think it will be more helpful when I have a specific project in mind rather than just general information to absorb.  With a specific project I think the whole attention-wandering aspect of my first read would be cut down and being able to zero in on the particular bits of wisdom pertaining to my actual needs will make it all more alive for me.  

We all can have a chance to enrich our writing with humor.  And with a little - or more likely - a lot of practice using the techniques in The Comic Toolbox even you could someday legitimately claim the title of comic alchemist.  Because, really, in the in the end who couldn't stand to be a little funnier?