![]() ![]() If those others are about planning a work of art, making decisions about layout and color, this book is about mixing the paints and choosing the brushes. I've read so many books lately on plot, character, and Big Picture elements that it was refreshing to consider working with my writing at this level again. Le Guin's focus with these exercises is wordsmithing. I liked some of them back then, but freewriting about your past only gets you so far, you know?) (The rest of those first books I picked up were very self-helpy. It's also the only book from those early days that survived the recent culling of my writing book collection, because the exercises are well-suited to aspiring and seasoned writers alike. This was one of the first books I bought for myself when I decided to pursue fiction writing. "On Writing" is probably more useful there. A short book, but precise in its advice, with a rare emphasis on those elements of creative writing that no one seems to talk about (voice, perspective, sentence structure, avoiding expository lumps, good use of punctuation).ĭon't read this book for advice on plot, dialogue, characterization or pacing. Her book feels like a valuable corollary, a good addition to a well-rounded reference. LeGuin covers everything King and Gardner either didn't cover or just touched upon. leaping (how much do you leave out, and what do you leave in?) were especially useful. There's some fantastic advice here, including nuanced and thought-provoking arguments about passive vs. Her advice is concise, terse and poignant, and she focuses entirely on craft. She has insight for the budding writer, but makes it clear that her book neither intends to promote writing as a form of therapy or help you get into a habit of productivity. LeGuin's book falls somewhere between King and Gardner. ![]() Strunk and White covered the bare bones fundamentals King's book covers the creative process and Gardner gets into some of the more academic, abstract concepts like rhythm, sentence variation and syntax. Prior to having read LeGuin's "Steering the Craft," I relied on three books, more or less: And so many of them come at you with flashy promises: "Sell Your Novel In Thirty Days!" I'm pretty skeptical of books on writing, if only because everyone seems to have written one. The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. She was known for her treatment of gender ( The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems ( The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls. ![]() Le Guin published twenty-two novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. ![]()
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