Reviewing Another Writer’s Work

It’s very difficult to review a friends work, and it’s awfully easy being honest reviewing a stranger’s work. However, I always like to look on the positive and emphasize it over the negatives when reviewing something…unless the negatives outweigh the positives.

Someone approached me on Shelfari and asked me to review their book. It took me about a month to finally finish it. It was only 170 pages long, including a cover page and a title page.

I questioned this lag. It’s exceptionally unusual for me to take this long reading something. I read hundreds of things in a day or more. Was it partially due to a very busy schedule? It was that, and the fact that  the book was slow-moving and became a difficult read. It was a fictional story about a family in New Orleans and the people they interact with–some of questionable character and health of mind–with most of the emphasis on the two children, a 16-year-old girl (the narrator) and a 19-year-old boy.

There were many opportunities where the writer could have cleaned up the narrative stream to tighten up the story, the characters, and the plot–I’m confused whether there was a plot. Some dialogue was narrated instead of used as dialogue. Some details emerged out of nowhere and were taken for granted when they did, instead of being incorporated into the storyline in dialogue or a description–and then some of these details weren’t even relevant to the story anyway.

There was a grittiness and confusion that made me ask myself whether this was stream of consciousness, the aura/environment the story took place in, or just haziness due to an organizational issue. I’m opting for the latter two.

This was also the first case I’ve come across where the narrator, one of the main characters, has very little personality that we can speak of — is the character just flat or is it flaky–a character flaw? What is this character’s motivation? Why do I feel like I’m seeing through here eyes without her really making much of an impact in the story? Why is everyone so self centered? You don’t buy in to self-centered, unlikable characters. Why do we get the feeling everyone is in abject poverty up until little details slip out every now and again that reveal these people have much more resources than we first thought?

You start questioning your understanding of the story. Is it me just not getting it or is it how the author drew it out, with too many holes? The camera moves us through scenery and events that I don’t feel I have a real stake in–either in understanding them or enjoying them. Not anymore. I just don’t care. When you lose the audience’s interest, when they stop caring about the characters or the plot, you’ve lost it all.

It’s troubling when you see potential just missed by thismuch. Lots of the areas I mentioned above could have been rewritten, tightenend up, or otherwise reworked to create a connecting thread, a writing style, and characters that worked together more neatly.

I couldn’t take it anymore so I replied to the author on Shelfari’s private message system that I couldn’t provide his book a positive review. And I apologized. I’m not sure why I apologized, I had to sit through the 170 pages. I saved any long explanations and just used those very simple words in two, concise sentences. Something I wish the book had more of.

Writing Mistakes

My Twitter feed honed my eyes in on an amazing post “11 Stupidest Writing Mistakes” — and as the title indicates, this is one of those fun-to-read posts that make you giggle and learn concurrently.

Great lessons. I love reading and “collecting” these sorts of tidbits because they are stored in the back of my brain and are called upon when I’m writing or editing others’ writing.

Of Autumn Flower Beds

I wonder. I wonder whether the flowers the gardeners are planting in our office building’s many flower beds feel short-changed.

The other plants, the ones that were planted in Spring had all Spring and Summer to grow and blossom.

Meanwhile, these few, dark jewel-toned pansies and mums are practically doomed. Their life expectancy will undoubtedly be short and their doom is all but certain.

The growing chill in the evening air soon turns into frigid morning frost–sealing their fate. That is…if they survive this week’s series of chilly, windy, and very wet days.

Find What’s Wrong

There’s something seriously amiss with the following sentence:

“She was going down the steps to fetch some food and he came up behind her and stabbed her.”
Found on this page.

Lesson: don’t let colloquialisms and cliches get the best of your sentence. Make each word count!

Grammar Know-How

The more I read, the more I intrinsically understand flow, good writing, what works and doesn’t work, and what to do where (online, newspaper, magazine, business communication, marketing piece, etc.). Yes, reading makes for better writing. I hope I get there some day LOL

Then there’s grammar. Now, now, before you peel your lips in an even bigger grimace…Many modern writers use their characters’ tones and personalities to create a particular effect in the reader’s mind. Stephen King is great at using dialogue and characters’ intonation and slang usage to indicate particular social class or regional origin.

For the rest of us, pro-wannabes, it’s of utmost importance to keep the fire burning under our intellectual hunger and a forward-moving momentum behind a very solid foundation. Which means the first baby step is knowing your basics: spelling and grammar.

One of my writing professors also teaches an editing course and she shared her class’s book title: The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation. She recommends this book because it focuses on areas which are oftentimes confused by writers (its and it’s, which and that, there and their, where, and were, etc.) and also, because it features self-quizzes with an answer key in the back.

I discovered the book’s website earlier this morning, and upon posting it to my Twitter account, another Twitter user replied to let me know about another book she counts as a standby: The Elements of Style, by Struck and White.

There are a number of strong, solid resources. There’s also the warrying tribes of APA, MLA, and AP style guides to contend with. I think that these are great standbys for any writer’s tool kit/bookshelf. What’s your favorite resource in your writer’s tool kit?

Audio vs. Paper Books

I’ve tried before, and eventually gave up. I haven’t quite gotten used to audio books.

They require too much of my attention span and I kinda feel it defeats the purpose of freeing up your hands to do other work if I keep tuning the book out because I get busy. This is a conundrum that emerges especially while driving. It’s so dangerous to listen intently instead of driving safely!

Today was the first audio book that I have tried since Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code back a few years ago–just a few weeks before the movie came out. Today’s book was Eat 4 Your Type by Peter D’Adamo, a book entailing a diet and philosophy of a diet filled with nutrients customized and based on your blood type. This is one of those philosophies that, for me, are tricky to believe fundamentally and completely. This diet follows what I consider conjecture and estimates of what our ancestors used to do and eat, in which parts of the world, and what impact these elements have on our genes, health, and weight today…kind of a large stretch if you ask me. This could definitely bring up my concerns about revisionist history and literal Bible followers…but that’s for another post.

I enjoyed listening to this book. At just over two hours long and split into two sections, it made for easy listening. I am a little proud of myself for having acquired it using iTunes…something I’ve just recently begun to do, this purchasing things on iTunes. I usually have, er, different sources for my audio and video (www.piratebay.org, www.mininova.org, www.torrent-finder.com, etc.).

This book was useful in that it explained some dietary needs and trends that I’ve seen over my life (such as an obsession with ceviche and fresh produce). Though, as with anything, it’s especially important to bring a grain of salt to the audio-book reading table. I would recommend people who have stable eating habits and know themselves and their nutritional needs, give this book a try, just to hear another perspective on balanced eating. You may learn something useful and that can assist you in pursuing a healthy lifestyle.

Sylvia Plath

Reading is fun. Unless I’m editing boring books at work like one on accounting and another one which has a gazillion typos because the authors didn’t bother finishing a complete camera-ready draft before sending it in to us for editing and layout.

For my Women in Literature course I did a lot of speed reading. I was very taken by Sylvia Plath, and haven’t really been able to shake off my interest in her thus far. I bought a 2009 biography of her (simply Sylvia Plath) which I found brilliant because of the author’s foreword, clarifying some major areas in Sylvia Plath’s life. I just finished reading it, and I’m very pleased that I ran into this book.

Just to recap, Sylvia Plath is considered one of the best poets and prolific writers in American literary history. Alas, Sylvia suffered from bipolar disorder, which was aggravated by associating herself with the wrong type of men, and an overachieving streak, which led her to get into overly complicated situations that emotionally overwhelmed her. She finally took her life just as she entered in her 3rd (she had just turned 30!! eek) decade.

I find reading about eccentric creative people rewarding in so many ways. It’s one of my favorite topics. In this same vein, I recently acquired a book that had been languishing in my Amazon wish list for about a year. It’s titled “Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament.”

Reuters Handbook of Journalism

By pure happenstance I happened…upon the Reuters Standards of Journalism. It’s quite eloquent and concise, and I thought that sharing it would help other writers. Here are the… 10 Absolutes of Reuters Journalism:

• Always hold accuracy sacrosanct
• Always correct an error openly
• Always strive for balance and freedom from bias
• Always reveal a conflict of interest to a manager
• Always respect privileged information
• Always protect their sources from the authorities
• Always guard against putting their opinion in a news story
• Never fabricate or plagiarise
• Never alter a still or moving image beyond the requirements of normal image enhancement
• Never pay for a story and never accept a bribe

To Hard Work and Encouragement

I attended the NLU Writer’s Week workshop series of four sessions last week. I received very valuable feedback, as did all the other participants, on the work samples we submitted in relation to the workshop leader’s expertise or topic. I sadly had to miss the afternoon session on Saturday, as I opted to spend some quality time with my significant-other unit at the Taste of Chicago. And it was a splendid day for it, the sun sparkled intensely upon Millennium Park and Grant Park, with a summer fervor we’d been craving in the area since Spring began. We had a great time.

The best part of all, however, turned up Tuesday evening, when the workshop leader for the Saturday afternoon sent me an email letting me know that everyone at the workshop, and he included, enjoyed the submission I had provided. He also provided detailed suggestions for its improvement. Which I will work on and save the file for future reference.

Since the submission was a post in my personal blog, back in February, I’ve opted to save his commentary/feedback as a comment to that post.

I’m just really happy that I received all around positive feedback on my work during the workshop, because the session leaders are esteemed and successful writers on their own, and their appreciation and encouragement comes at a really good time for me, as I’m just starting to figure out some long-term paths that I may be interested in.

Last night was my first Women in Literature class for the term, which I’m very much looking forward to. Never mind the one hour commute to and fro ;o)

I was a little set back by the type of interaction the women (and one guy!) in the class engaged in. Why is it people’s behavior sometimes make me feel like a martian in their midst? I notice a difference between downtown/near downtown individuals’ attitudes from individuals in the suburbs. The downtown individuals particular to my class, last night, were a little self righteous and bitter. I hope that this amalgamous attitude doesn’t rub off, I fear it may alter my creativity in a negative way. The professor, who is also my advisor and the program chair, is awonderful person who has a lot to share about the excellent writers we’re studying during this course. I’m especially fond of one of the writers’ (Sylvia Plath) personal life which I discovered through a quiz in Facebook (!) and look forward to expanding my knowledge of her life, times, and works.

Here’s to good reading!

Word of the Day

Sculduggery : underhanded or unscrupulous behavior ; also : a devious device or trick