Thursday, May 8, 2008

BTT: Manual labor

It's Booking Through Thursday time again.

This week's question:

Writing guides, grammar books, punctuation how-tos . . . do you read them? Not read them? How many writing books, grammar books, dictionaries–if any–do you have in your library?

I am a big fan of these types of books, and use them a lot professionally for my day job. My favourites are:
- Macquarie Dictionary
- Fowler's Use of Modern English
- Thesaurus (Rogets is still the best)
- Australian Government Style Guide (which has excellent simple explanations of grammatical rules, along with all the official style guff).

As for writing guides, a US editor many years ago recommended to me Self-editing for fiction writers by Renni Browne and Dave King (available on Amazon), and it taught me an enormous amount about the mechanics of storytelling.

It's not a "how to write" book, but rather an editing checklist, covering topics including point of view, proportion, characterisation and exposition etc. It's a fantastic tool for anyone writing fiction (and is pretty much the sort of thing manuscript assessors and editors focus on).

10 comments:

  1. Oh I need to check out that self editing book. It sounds like it would be really helpful.

    You want to know what else I have been intending to read for a while Elements of Style. None of the blogs I have visited have talked about that yet. I really should follow through with that one!

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  2. The Self-editing book sounds really useful. I love dictionaries and get engrossed because looking up one word just leads on to more.

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  3. That sounds like a very useful book.

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  4. Great recommendations. I will check out the self-edit book!

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  5. I've had the Browne/King book recommended to me by several people. It sounds interesting, but I've also heard they use "The Great Gatsby" as an example of a book that needs better editing, and I've always found that hard to accept!

    I'm also a big fan of Fowler's - it should be in everyone's library.

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  6. I love poking through dictionaries and finding new words. Then the next challenge is to see if I can use it in everyday conversation. Given the fact that we don't really use English to converse, that's quite difficult! :)

    I also have this handbook for writers. I forgot its title though.

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  7. http://rejecter.blogspot.com/2008/05/stupid-things-this-one-guy-did.html

    this blog is a must look for people looking to get published.

    just thought I'd stick it up there...

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  8. Dear Paula Weston

    I am reading "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" published by ABC Books and edited by Peter Boxall.

    The book is a cogent summary of what makes a great novel. It also showcases the art of critiquing a great piece of art. Even great novels have there flaws.

    I am also reading some of the works mentioned in the book and have recently been introduced to super novelists such as Sylvia Plath, the Bronte sisters, and Aesopus.

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  9. Dear Paula Weston

    Your post piqued my interest in exploring my own bookshelves searching for some of the writing guides I use to read so enthusiastically before I became a lawyer.

    The best I have are excerpts from "Henry Miller on Writing" where he describes a moment most writers will recognise,offering his point of view on the writer and seeing.

    "If I had been reading the face of the world with the eyes of a writer, I now read it anew with even greater intensity. Nothing was too petty to escape attention. If I went for a walk to explore as I put it - it was for the deliberate purpose of transforming myself into an enormous eye. Seeing the common, everyday things in this new light I was often transfixed. The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnified world in itself."

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  10. Last one:

    "Rewrite Right" by Jan Venolia. Her editing checklist on pages 12 through 15 are excellent.

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