TRUTH IS THE ARROW, MERCY IS THE BOW - Steve Almond
Although Almond is a bit self-deprecating throughout, he uses it to point out mistakes he's made , hoping it helps others avoid the pitfalls:
I realized that early in the drafting process, I wasn't thinking about plot at all. I was simply trying to get a beat on my characters, who they were and what they wanted. thus, I spent a lot of time simply marching them around their daily routines and hoping they would bump into plot.
...
This kind of thinking requires the author to step back and consider the larger arc of her story. And again, speaking bluntly, I suck at this kind of stepping back. I'm an inveterate improviser. Put more precisely: I use scenes to conceive of plot rather than to dramatize and advance plot.
But he also talks about these problems or 'mistakes' and we (assuming most readers are writers looking for more insight) recognize them in ourselves. ("Often, I'll spend more words describing a minor character than a major one.")
There's a lot of good advice here and it's not just textbook, by the numbers advice that I've seen in so many other 'how to' books.
I particularly enjoyed his chapter "How Write Sex Scenes Without Shame". He doesn't shy away from the subject matter. I hadn't realized that he's often been anthologized in Best of Erotica collections - not because he's specifically writing erotica but because his characters are sexual beings who have sex. But he asks all writers:
Given this - how much sex matters to us, how much joy and risk it awakens, how much it reveals about us - the question I wish to pose to my fellow writers is this: Why the hell aren't you writing more sex scenes? Aren't you curious about such a fundamental aspect of the people you're writing about? Can you really know them entirely if you don't know their kinks?
Almond does address the dreaded Writer's Block.
I've been creatively stalled so many times over the years that it can be hard for me to distinguish between periods of genuine Writer's Block and eras in which I've managed to avoid deep creative work by focusing on other pursuits, such as making money or promoting a book or poising baby woodchucks. But I certainly remember the worst of my blocks.
Almond gives us a lot of little nuggets of information and I can practically picture some young writers taking copious notes and highlighting with vigor ("Slow down where it hurts." "I didn't want to write a novel. I wanted to be a novelist." "What most writers do is disguise the truth." "Fiction writers frisk the world for symbolic versions of their experience." etc)
I appreciated that Almond doesn't come at this with all the usual platitudes and advice that one might typically find (yes, he addresses the 'show, don't tell' mantra). His take on writer's workshops is a little surprising.
There is a Q&A section of the book from frequently asked questions, which I enjoyed (though I don't know that any of these would have been my questions).
And while I've gushed a bit here, because I do like Steve Almond's literary voice, not all is swell. Pulling out his teacher's notes, Almond references other literary works to provide examples of what he's talking about. A lot. Too much, even. I actually got annoyed at one point when I was about to read yet another example from a different literary work. Perhaps my impatience is a sign of why I don't have the hoped-for success as a writer?
Looking for a good book? Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow by Steve Almond is a great, helpful book and it should be required reading for open-minded young writers.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
4-1/2 stars
* * * * * *
Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow
author: Steve Almond
publisher: Zando
ISBN: 9781638931300
hardcover, 256 pages
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