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Writing: A User Manual | Reviews

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A practical guide to the craft of planning, starting and finishing a novel

David Hewson

Bloomsbury £12.99

 

Writing: A User Manual

'the emphasis in this guide to writing is on practicality, organisation and working discipline'

 

 

 

'this guide focuses on the hows of writing rather than the whats, and its goal is to help aspiring writers actually finish a novel rather than getting bogged down along the way.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'The great strength of Hewson's guide lies in the detailed focus on the actual process of putting together a novel, the decisions that need to be made, the best way to approach the task and so on.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Hewson, author of the popular Nic Costa series, featuring a detective and art lover solving crimes in Rome, began his working life as a journalist, writing novels in the evening. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the emphasis in this guide to writing is on practicality, organisation and working discipline. Indeed, as Lee Child notes in his introduction to this book, writing is as much a trade or profession as it is an art, and while some aspects of it can't be taught, others can, and those include the elements of craft that Hewson covers in Writing.

As Hewson himself puts it, this guide focuses on the hows of writing rather than the whats, and its goal is to help aspiring writers actually finish a novel rather than getting bogged down along the way. Hewson's argument is that while sound working habits are no substitute for creative talent they nonetheless give it room to develop. As a consequence he lays emphasis on developing good working habits, good time management techniques and a solid understanding of the basic elements of the craft of writing.

Hewson divides his guide into what he sees as being the three principal phases of writing a novel, planning, writing and refining. Throughout he stresses that he is offering guidance rather than rules, and that what works for him may not work for others, in which case the reader is likely to get the most out of this book by using it as a touchstone for their current working practices rather than by following Hewson's own practice slavishly.

In Section 1, Plan, Hewson invites us to think first about what it takes to be a writer - the characteristics that make a writer, such as self-motivation, being open to criticism, etc. - but quickly turns to matters of procedure - what sort of writer do you want to be? (In practice, this means deciding on a genre in which to work) - before posing a series of questions about the novel-in-waiting: first person or third person viewpoint, past or present tense. Hewson lays out the mechanical pros and cons of these decisions clearly and plainly. Hewson also uses a seed story, ‘Charlie and the Mermaid', to show how such decisions shape a novel's writing.

It should be noted that this advice is by no means all-encompassing; Hewson is inevitably more comfortable with and more knowledgeable about certain genres than he is about others; authors planning to write fantasy, science fiction or romance might well need to seek supplementary advice elsewhere. However, where this section works best is in showing the nuts and bolts of setting up a book journal, and techniques such as outlining. In particular, Hewson spends a good deal of time showing how to organise one's work on a computer and to use specialist writing programs, along with screen illustrations. For anyone who works more comfortably when actually shown how to do something and what the screen will look like, this guide is clearly a must.

Section 2, Write, continues in a similar vein, exploring the writing of a novel as a series of necessary choices to be made about structure, characterisation, voice, style. Much of this material might seem obvious to the more experienced writer but the nervous newbie is likely to find this approach very helpful in shaping the story. Hewson's emphasis is very much on structuring the novel, thinking about what the characters will do and say, and he encourages the writer to think hard about that rather than simply pouring everything onto the page. Some might consider this a mechanistic approach but it is, I think, very helpful in understanding what it feels like to write a novel, even if one then discards the end result and starts again. It is, if you like, ‘learning by doing' and it is an excellent way of understanding the process. Again, throughout the section, Hewson revisits ‘Charlie and the Mermaid' in a variety of ways, to illustrate the consequences of the decisions a writer might make.

The last section of the guide, Deliver, is disappointingly thin by comparison with the first two sections. No one enjoys revision and Hewson seems to suggest that there is no easy way to deal with it other than to just do it. In some ways this is a pity as for many writers revision is the hardest part of the process, developing the necessary detachment to appraise the novel's possible faults and flaws. Given that Hewson himself is not a particularly strong advocate of writers' groups and the like, some writers might feel a little let down at this stage, wondering what to do next, as will those hoping for more detailed advice on submitting a finished novel to either an agent or a publisher. This lack of enthusiasm on Hewson's part is perhaps indicative of his own well-established writing practice, and indeed it can be difficult for a much-published author to offer sensible advice to a new author when the publishing scene is changing so rapidly. Needless to say, other guides for dealing with these issues are available.

The great strength of Hewson's guide lies in the detailed focus on the actual process of putting together a novel, the decisions that need to be made, the best way to approach the task and so on, While the guide's final section may be something of a letdown there can be no denying the fact that the advice contained in its first two sections more than compensates for this and will be of immense value to anyone tackling their first novel.

 

© Maureen Kincaid SpellerMaureen Kincaid Speller a reviewer, writer, editor and former librarian, is our book reviewer and also works for WritersServices as a freelance editor. 2013 Reviewed by Maureen Kincaid Speller

 

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Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
2012-02-16
Paperback
Sales rank: 1,805,585