NoelBWrites

Noel B

@NoelBWrites

I like writing and writing byproducts
🧉💜✨🌹

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NoelBWrites
@NoelBWrites
TrashBoatDaGod
@TrashBoatDaGod asked:

What do you mean by writing craft books and why do you hate them?

I mean books that are about writing. Usually advice on how to write good and (most often) commercially viable stories

I don't hate craft books on principle, it just so happens that almost every craft book I've read has been bad. I sort them in two camps:

  • "save the cat": these books promise you a cheat sheet to write a bestseller and they tend to lead to really formulaic stories
  • "bird by bird": these are about how writing is the most special thing in the world and you have no control over it because your muse will possess you and make art through you. Also you're smarter and more sensitive and really cool for being a writer

I actually started reading craft books and reviewing them here, trying to find the not terrible ones. So far we're 0/3: [Craft review]

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LJMcEachern
@LJMcEachern

This is my feelings on craft books. I don't really like them. Probably the only craft book I deemed, "Okay" was Drown the Cat(It's not about writing a bestseller, would like more like it) and it does go by another title because... It's like I don't want a formula to write a novel, and I also don't want fluff. It's like the entire writing advice would sometimes forgets that all writers don't have this goal of publishing or writing a book for the masses. I would say On Writing by Stephen King would be okay if I hadn't been part of a community that worship that book and you could never say anything bad about it even if it was a valid criticism.

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ninecoffees
@ninecoffees

Tell me about it, I spent some formative years of my life devouring stuff like On Writing by Stephen King or Truby's Anatomy of Story. They're so rigid and say things like "all the drama in the world has been cracked, so you have to follow these lines" etc etc

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teddy
@teddy

I've been attending writing symposiums since I was a child and I've always been driven nuts by just how common the second camp of magical thinking around writing is. To me it's always felt like authors trying to dodge responsibility for their creative decisions by claiming they're somehow not decisions at all.

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