Review: More profanity, karate unicorn anecdotes and writing advice
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 6, 2012
Regular readers of my reviews will be in no doubt as to my regard for the profanity-laden, wisdom-hammering excesses of Chuck Wendig. Better Story is his sixth (and perhaps final) collection of essays, culled from weekly posts at his weblog terribleminds.com, on the psychology, craft, dangers and business of writing. Once again I have nothing but praise. All of these essays - each of which comprises a 25-dot-point commentary on some aspect of writing from creating interesting characters and writing better sex to avoiding self-defeating habits and deciding to going pro - are available for free from the website. But having them collected together for easy e-reference is well worth your three bucks.Highlight in this outing include the ascerbic '25 Thing I Want to Say to So-called 'Aspiring' Writers' ("Write...write better than you did yesterday and better tomorrow than you did today"); '25 Things Writers Should Know about Creating Mystery' ("The audience must not be left comfortable. They should be forced to stare at those dark corners as long as they can stand it"); and of course, the ever-popular '25 Ways to Un[deleted] Your Story' ("Go through every sentence with pruning shears. Cut out junk language like so many fatty tumours. Dead-head your darlings.")Amongst a constant stream of imaginative new profanities, unsettling imagery and jokes about dead unicorns and chainsaw-wielding hookers, Wendig's writing advice is solid, unsentimental and above all useful. He fixes his drunkenly roving attention on everything that is transcendant and vexatious about the art and craft of writing. He takes his readers' hands in an only slightly shaky grip and steers them through the slurping quagmires of the publishing industry, online community-building and their own self-doubt. He leads them to writing, and it's good.