In other words, "A Girl's Guide to Writing Chick Lit." I picked this one up on a whim at the library after flipping through it at Borders. Despite the egregious title, I have to say it's one of the better "how to write" books I've read. It covers both the basics and also gets into nitpicky detail, and while I already knew a lot of the points, it got my brain churning and made me realize a couple of things about pacing and character development. It also reads incredibly quickly. And, probably most important, it avoided my biggest pet peeve in books with sidebars: The sidebars fall naturally within the text, at breaks. I seriously hate it when you have to flip back and forth between the pages, or stop in the middle of the main text to take in the sidebar...so annoying. So I highly recommend this one.
I did have to laugh though in reading the Grammar and Punctuation chapter. The authors spend a couple pages detailing the differences between words like "effect" and "affect" and "bear" and "bare." Now, I'm not generally a snob about these things, but I'm thinking if you don't already know the difference between these words, a novel isn't in your future. Dentistry or astrophysics, maybe. I'm not sure that I even remember how to figure out the volume of a cube (length times width times height?), but I also realized early on that the sciences were not my calling. You know what I mean?
Next up: I've started reading Brideshead Revisited but it's slow-going. I'm not sure I'm going to make it through. I just found out that The Zoo on the Road to Nablus is waiting for me at the library (finally!), and I might be tempted to switch over. The only problem is, when I drop a book, I rarely go back. So we'll see if Brideshead and I can tough it out...maybe I'll just go see the movie. :)
I did have to laugh though in reading the Grammar and Punctuation chapter. The authors spend a couple pages detailing the differences between words like "effect" and "affect" and "bear" and "bare." Now, I'm not generally a snob about these things, but I'm thinking if you don't already know the difference between these words, a novel isn't in your future. Dentistry or astrophysics, maybe. I'm not sure that I even remember how to figure out the volume of a cube (length times width times height?), but I also realized early on that the sciences were not my calling. You know what I mean?
Next up: I've started reading Brideshead Revisited but it's slow-going. I'm not sure I'm going to make it through. I just found out that The Zoo on the Road to Nablus is waiting for me at the library (finally!), and I might be tempted to switch over. The only problem is, when I drop a book, I rarely go back. So we'll see if Brideshead and I can tough it out...maybe I'll just go see the movie. :)
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