250 Things You Should Know About Writing by Chuck Wendig

I am a big fan of Mr Wendig. It started with Irregular Creatures which is equal parts bizarre and brilliant. Then I bought Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey which is a hilarious and informative collection of his blog posts about writing. I also have Double Dead on pre-order, and the first of Mr Wendig’s two novels with Angry Robot Books in my ebook subscription package next year. Hmmm, that seems like almost stalker levels of fandom.

There is a one star review of this book on Amazon US that moans about the language and the lack of any useful writing advice. Lesson one, read the blurb before buying a book. If you don’t like swearing DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK! There is plenty advice on writing in this book and I can only think that the language obscured it for that particular reader. I personally feel that the writing of Mr Wendig will be very popular in the UK because we love a good hobo handjob over here. Or is it a self-deprecating humour?

I found the structure of this book combined with the short sections not only makes this book easy to read, but also better as reference material. Most of the content can be considered quite basic and common sense.  My old martial arts instructor used to hammer into us every week that the basics are everything, and should be practiced every day. That is a piece of advice they both heavily subscribe to so there is probably something to it.

This book will be of most value to people interested in writing either a book or a screenplay, but is equally transferable to blog posts, emails, technical writing and academic papers.

You’re probably thinking that this post is not the best advert for a book on writing. My posts are a damn sight less crap now than they were a couple of months ago. Maybe in a year my reviews will be somewhere near the quality of my favourite review sites. I will keep plugging away and try to get better. Oh, and I promise to read every single post out loud.

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