As I mentioned in an earlier review of a different book, I was inspired to finally start my book writing project a few weeks ago and while it's been slow-going (and most likely will continue to be), I'm glad I decided to start working on it rather than continue to hold off until I have "more time." Because of this, I've been trying to squeeze some books about writing (most of which I've had on my TBR for ages but just never got the chance to pick up) into my reading schedule, as I wanted to keep the momentum going in terms of inspiration. One of the books that a writer friend pointed me to as a "must-read" is author Francine Prose's bestselling classic Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them. I had actually never heard of this book prior to my friend recommending it (and I'm also not familiar with Francine Prose as a writer — I had heard of her, but had never read anything by her), but as soon as I saw that title, I just knew I had to pick it up right away – which I'm glad I did because there were so many insightful ideas in here!
Prose starts her book with a question that has been asked many times over the years and to which there technically isn't a straightforward answer: "Can creative writing be taught?" While Prose never attempts to actually answer this question directly (which makes sense because, in my opinion, it's impossible to answer simply "yes" or "no" to this particular question), she does use her own experience on how she "learned to write" to explain her thoughts on it. I'm not going to even attempt to summarize the entirety of her experience / thoughts (it's not possible to anyway), but I wanted to share a few quotes that essentially form the premise of what her book is about.
- "Like most – maybe all – writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, by reading books."
- "In the ongoing process of becoming a writer, I read and re-read the authors I most loved. I read for pleasure, first, but also more analytically, conscious of style, of diction, of how sentences were formed and information was being conveyed, how the writer was structuring a plot, creating characters, employing detail and dialogue. And as I wrote, I discovered that writing, like reading, was done one word at a time, one punctuation mark at a time."
- "I read closely, word by word, sentence by sentence, pondering each deceptively minor decision the writer had made."
- "What writers know is that, ultimately, we learn to write by practice, hard work, by repeated trial and error, success and failure, and from the books we admire."
- "And so the book that follows represents an effort to recall my own education as a novelist and to help the passionate reader and would-be writer understand how a writer reads."
In the version of the book that I bought, there is a reprinted interview in the back that Francine Prose did with The Atlantic in July 2006 (around the time the book first came out) where she adds additional insight about why she wrote this book, which I feel are worth sharing as well (if you do decide to pick up this book, I strongly recommend getting the version that has the interview).
- "If I had to really characterize the book, I'd say it's about the pleasure of reading and about learning to write."
- "For me, writing this book was a pretty passionate endeavor. What I'm hoping is that some of that passion gets through. Because it seems to me that the most important thing in any discussion of reading and writing is that intense commitment to the whole process."
The following is one of my favorite quotes from that interview. In response to the interviewer's question referring back to another interview that Prose did back in 1998 where she said that she became a writer because she was an avid reader, so she would often get perplexed by the fact that some of her students who wanted to be writers either weren't actually reading or weren't reading passionately: "That hasn't gotten any better, let me tell you. In fact, I can look back and identify a few incidents that led up to my writing the book….I don't quite get it. On a very basic level, I can't figure out why people would want to write unless they like to read. I mean, what would be the point? For the incredibly glamorous fast track lifestyle? I don't think so." (The wit in those last 2 sentences made me chuckle!)
One of the things I like about this book is that, despite the title, it doesn't actually read like a "how-to" guide on writing. Prose doesn't tell the reader how to write or what words to use / not to use, etc. Rather, she takes some of the basic elements of story writing (i.e. sentence structure, character, details, etc.) and, using excerpts from works by other authors (both classic and contemporary, but mostly classic), illustrates how they utilized those elements in their writing. Personally, I found this method useful, though of course, depending on what you're looking for in books of this nature, this could be a huge turn-off for those who prefer a more traditional "how-to" approach — which is why I feel it's necessary to mention so that if you plan to pick this up, you know what you're getting into.
After showing us many examples of writing that did a good job of demonstrating the particular element the chapter focused on, Prose caps it all at the end with the assertion that there is actually not one "correct" way to write, which I found interesting. She writes: "And actually, many things that we ourselves consider indispensable for a work of fiction may turn out, the more we read, to be superfluous. If the culture sets up a series of rules that the writer is instructed to observe, reading will show you how these rules have been ignored in the past, and the happy outcome. So let me repeat, once more: literature not only breaks the rules, but makes us realize that there are none."
By now, it's probably quite obvious that I got a lot out of this book. Having said that, of course the book wasn't perfect and there was definitely room for improvement in some areas in terms making the book more readable and accessible overall — i.e.: some of the excerpts used were a bit too long, and in some cases, a little repetitive in illustrating a particular element; also would've preferred a better balance between excerpts from classic works and ones from more contemporary works — but definitely not a dealbreaker in my opinion.
Not only did this book provide me with some great reading and writing advice, it was also funny and engaging, which I totally was not expecting. I actually wish that I had read this book way back when it first came out, as it probably would've motivated me to start my book project earlier. I especially appreciate the fact that Prose's overall message with this book is so simple (how to read like a writer), yet still tremendously helpful. Case in point – I don't remember which section I was reading exactly, but as I put the book down for a quick break after finishing one of the chapters, I was hit by a sudden bout of inspiration and instead of picking up the book to continue reading right at that moment (which was my original intention), I ended up spending that time working out a scene that I had struggled with writing earlier.
After reading this book, in addition to inspiring me to want to apply some of these concepts to my own reading and writing life, I'm also eager to check out some of Francine Prose's other works as well!
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