Equal parts snarky and respectful, this look back on the paperback horror novels of the 1970s and 80s is a gruesomely delightful trip down memory lane.
Hendrix’s language in describing the outlandish stories moves beyond colorful and into tasteless at times, but I could never decide if it was in keeping with the spirit of the books described or if he was trying (and perhaps failing) to adopt the presence of a guy at a bar sharing some whacked-out stories with you. It doesn’t come up a lot and I suspect it won’t be an issue for most people attracted to this book, but be warned all the same.
How you read this book will greatly affect your enjoyment of it. This is not something to read on a Kindle or Kobo ereader. If you are not in possession of a paper copy, you owe it to yourself to read this on a larger tablet, all the better to take in the dozens of gaudy, gory and inevitably skeleton-filled book covers. I recognized a few here and there, but even as a fan of horror in the 80s, a lot of these were new to me.
Did I mention the skeleton covers? Skeletons were very popular.
When you’re not drinking in the bloody book covers, Hendrix provides a somewhat truncated overview of the period, dividing the chapters into different themes such as Hail Satan, Creepy Kids, Weird Science and so on. For everyone who scrunched up their toes at that scene in Stephen King’s IT (hint: it involves sex and kids), Hendrix lays out stuff that is far worse here, stuff that layers on one outrageous, offensive, gory, horrible, disgusting thing on another, then slices them all in half with a machete and serves them up for dinner, with the boiled blood of babies as the gravy. I’m probably underselling some of these novels on how gruesome they are–and this is before Hendrix even gets to the actual splatterpunk sub-genre.
In a way, Paperbacks from Hell is sad, as it chronicles the rise of popular horror fiction that began after Rosemary’s Baby became a hit in the late 60s, and follows along as it sputters out in the early 90s. This is when horror proper gave way to thrillers (aka a million variations on “killer on the loose” stories). While Grady doesn’t talk about contemporary horror, a visit to any decent-sized bookstore (those that remain) will reveal that not much has changed. Horror is again a niche, and in some ways worse (or better, depending on your perspective), with endless series based on zombie apocalypses, other apocalypses, or zombie apocalypses mixed in with other apocalypses. If you like zombies, though, you pretty much have a lifetime smorgasbord already waiting for you.
In the end, though, it’s the lurid full color book covers that make Paperbacks From Hell worth looking through. There is enough here to keep a Ridiculous Book Cover blog going for years.
Recommended for fans of horror or fans of paperback art who don’t mind the occasionally gruesome work. And lots of skeletons.
On the one hand it’s a downer because humanity is doomed.
On the other hand, there’s a small chance humanity isn’t doomed.
Around these two extremes and via a conversation Strieber transcribed from memory of a man who came to his Toronto hotel room at 2:30 a.m. on June 6, 1998, there are warnings about screwing up our planet before we are able to leave it and inhabit other worlds, detailed descriptions of the barrier between the living and the dead and how we can learn to both detect and communicate with the dead by using the devices seen on the ten thousand or so ghost hunting shows on T&E. The mysterious man who arrives at Strievber’s hotel room refers to himself by many names and descriptions–Master of the Key, Michael, Legion, a Canadian (who doesn’t pay taxes), and at times seems both human and more than human. There are condemnations from him of our stewardship of the planet (which seems perfectly sensible, really), government secrecy, the accumulation of wealth over spiritual growth, and the bonus revelation of how the murder of a couple in the Holocaust prevented us from learning how to harness gravity, because the smart person who figured this out was never born.
But wait, there’s more. There is confirmation of intelligent life on other planets and in space itself (I’m assuming something more subtle than the giant hand that grabbed the Enterprise in the original series). There are aliens here, both helping us, and trying to thwart our growth and evolution. They are in the government, well-hidden. Lizard people? Well, the Master of the Key doesn’t say, but he does note that these aliens are skilled in deception, general mind control and besides, some of them look just like us so don’t even need to hide themselves.
But there’s even more! Earth is a fallen world. Another ice age is imminent and with it the risk that humanity will be wiped out because, to paraphrase Illidan, we are not prepared. If we are made extinct we will not evolve and join with the other radiant humans who have already ascended and become part of the fabric of the cosmos (we here on Earth are referred to as “elemental beings” by the MOTK. This comes across as a bit of a putdown). There is talk of how three major faiths–Christianity, Buddhism and Islam–are all part of the same triad, each just a different aspect. Also there is no god because we are all god. And we should help starving children.
Also, there are intelligent machines out there and we need to get around to making our own intelligent machines that are smarter than us because it’s the only way we’ll get out of this climate mess. But these intelligent machines will become self-aware and…it kind of sounds like maybe that’s not a good thing, although SkyNET is never precisely invoked.
At one point Strieber describes himself as crying at the words of the Master of the Key, and it’s not difficult to see why. This is a lot of stuff to absorb when you were just expecting a waiter to come in and change your hotel room’s towels.
Now, it may sound like I’m being flip, but Strieber does provide some evidence and plausible thoughts on the climate change warnings, which only seem even more compelling in 2018 vs. 1998. There is also evidence that some kind of electromagnetic hijinks are happening in areas where people report ghosts. The idea that a soul–some kind of intelligent (plasma?) energy–may exist outside of the body has some evidence to support it. But it’s still a lot to take in. The Master, like any good prophet/seer/I-know-more-than-you-do often speaks in riddles and metaphors. And just as you try to wrap your brain about what he’s really saying he lays out a hard scientific explanation for the soul and how to detect it.
In the end I was left simultaneously baffled, stimulated and entertained by The Key. I keep an open mind, even about things most people view as nutty, like UFOS, Bigfoot and healthy fast food, so I’m not willing to dismiss the things discussed in this slim book out of hand. Conversely, it’s actually pretty grim in retrospect. Strieber keeps things moving, though.
I can’t say I recommend the book per se, but it certainly offers some interesting ideas about our world and where humanity may be headed.
And if Donald Trump pulls off his human mask during the next State of the Union address and confesses to trying to stop the evolution of humanity, Strieber can totally claim he called it 20 years ago. Hmm, that sounds way more plausible than it should…
Note: This book is free, but is only available if you sign up for author David Gaughran’s newsletter (as he graciously points out, you can unsubscribe from the newsletter immediately after if it gives you the heebie jeebies or something.)
Amazon Decoded is essentially a companion piece to Gaughran’s Let’s Get Digital, his guide to self-publishing that focuses primarily, though not exclusively, on Amazon’s Kindle market. This short book obviously does focus exclusively on Amazon and it offers detailed advice and explanations for self-publishing authors, both new and more established.
The tone throughout is very conversational and Gaughran admits to areas where his knowledge is incomplete, such as in how Amazon’s “Also Bought” listings affect sales and rankings. But there is still a lot of good information here, including what not to do. Much of this involves being careful how you promote your book, as the “wrong” audience can muddy the various lists Amazon generates and impact book sales. Gaughran illustrates these points with his own promotional blunders, adopting a good-natured tone as he recounts his marketing goof-ups.
This is a very quick read. As Gaughran points out, it’s more a booklet than a book, and I recommend it be read alongside Let’s Get Digital if you intend to self-publish through Amazon’s kindle store. For others it provides some insights into the virtual machinery of Amazon’s Kindle store, but perhaps not enough to warrant a read just for that alone.
Let’s Get Digital is a concise, current and captivating collection of considerations on why and especially how you might go about self-publishing your books. It also doesn’t suffer from the terrible alliteration I used in the previous sentence. Sorry about that.
Author David Gaughran has updated his book with this third edition and considering the changes that have occurred since the first edition in 2010, it’s a thoughtful and interesting look back at the early days of self-publishing (through ebooks rather than a vanity press) and an excellent primer on what the current market is like. Gaughran covers the pros (many) and cons (a few) of self-publishing and doesn’t just focus exclusively on Amazon, acknowledging that other online stores exist. He highlights where you may want to spend money (editing, a good book cover) and advises against the necessity of many things that don’t apply to those working outside the traditional model of publishing.
He backs up his advice with anecdotes, both personal and at the conclusion of the book where 30 self-published authors share their successes, along with statistics on the growth of indie publishing. Likewise, he offers detailed advice on pricing, researching your market/genre and provides a good set of resources for further investigation and follow-up.
If you write and have toyed with the idea of self-publishing, it’s hard not to be enthused about the prospect after reading Let’s Get Digital. This is an excellent, clearly-written primer and highly recommended to aspiring authors looking to break into the burgeoning world of indie fiction (and non-fiction).
In which I once again dive into the weird yet strangely fascinating world of Whitley Strieber.
Strieber was originally known as a horror author known for books like The Hunger and The Wolfen. He branched out with a pair of novels in the mid-80s that posed “What if?” scenarios regarding a limited nuclear war and the destruction of the environment. Both are still compelling reads today, and Warday especially presents a chillingly authentic take on how devastating a “small” nuclear exchange would be.
Then came 1985’s Communion, in which Strieber relates experiences with what he calls “visitors” (not aliens) to his cabin in upstate New York, the now infamous grays. Unlike the pseudo-documentary style of Warday and Nature’s End, Communion is presented as fact, events that actually happened to Strieber, his family and others around him.
Some people dismiss this as a con, but it strikes me as too detailed and comprehensive to be the book equivalent of a snake oil salesman. I’ve seen people recount experiences with aliens and there is a strong sense of delusion in the way they present their stories, with obvious gaps and little evidence to suggest anything happened other than in the alleged victims’ minds. And one could claim the same here, that Strieber is similarly deluded, that he is simply not well. But if you’ve read the narrative he’s formed over the last 30 years it is impossible to dismiss everything without assuming a level of paranoia about all the others going in with him on the scam.
All of this is a long way of saying Strieber reports a lot of weird shit happening to him, and who am I to tell him it didn’t? I think what we know of the world and the universe is a tiny slice of a very thick wedge, and as advanced as we think we are with our internet-connected refrigerators and smart cars that almost never crash, the stuff we don’t know towers over what we do.
And that is a slightly-less longer way of saying I’m willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to weird shit, especially if they can present their case with humility, at least some circumstantial evidence, and make it interesting, too.
The Afterlife Revolution posits one thing: that when we die, the physical body ends, but the soul–or whatever you want to call it–persists, leaving the body and returning to a non-physical realm where it exists both as a separate thing and also as part of a giant consciousness that encompasses the entire universe. Anne Strieber describes it as “universal love” during her many chats with her husband Whitley.
Anne Strieber died in August of 2015.
Since then Whitley Strieber claims he has been contacted by her and the book is in large part a dialogue between himself and his late wife, as she tries to answer his questions about what lies beyond the end of life. Mixed in with this is a somewhat urgent need to create a “bridge” to better facilitate communication between the living and the not-so-living because the world is on the brink of catastrophic change. For those who have read Strieber’s other books, this will be familiar, as he has long been warning of cataclysmic climate change and the immense toll it will take on humanity–usually estimating billions dead and humanity possibly extinguished altogether.
By bridging the gap between the living and the dead, it is suggested we would be able to at least mitigate the worst of the effects and humanity would survive, albeit probably not with internet-connected refrigerators. At least not for awhile. There is talk of how hard it is for the dead to appear before the living due to being so much lighter and faster and existing in a different space, which accounts for why they prefer making loud noises and being spooky. Apparently taking any sort of “physical” form is very demanding. Anne also talks about how some of the post-living are denser that others and that their souls sink instead of rising (to where is never really specified, though it’s suggested that “bad” people get reincarnated and keep getting sent back until they straighten out).
Strieber provides the circumstantial evidence, some of it in the form of coincidences (asking for a sign of Anne’s presence, then seeing something shortly after that seems “planted” by her, mixed in with a few out of body experiences, strange sightings and yes, loud noises. He freely admits there is no way to prove any of it, but the scenarios involving other people suggest that if this were a fraud, it’s one in which he has conscripted quite a few others.
In the end I was–being the logical, rational, but open-minded guy I like to think I am–intrigued by the ideas presented. There is a strong spiritual element throughout the book, but it’s not tied to a specific religion, it’s offered up more as an explanation of why these religions came into being, along with stories that persist across cultures, like a great flood. I admit I like the idea that there may be something beyond the physical, if only because a non-physical version of me would probably have nicer teeth. Or wouldn’t need them. I begin thinking in practical terms before long–how would an eternal non-physical entity keep itself entertained or interested? What would it do? How would it have fun? But that’s just me sitting here with a head cold not being able to fully comprehend questions of the universe.
I still like the idea, though. And if nothing else, The Afterlife Revolution is a sweet, and touching encapsulation of the life of a loving couple.
If you are absolutely sure that once we are dead, that’s it, this book will not convince you otherwise. You may even shout out, “Bah!” and toss it aside. But if you’re willing to at least entertain the notion that there is some other realm we lowly humans can inhabit after we expire, The Afterlife Revolution presents some interesting ideas on what it might be like, and frames it as a kind of thriller in which the dead and the living better learn how to talk to each other–and soon.
There were 11 school shooting incidents in the U.S. in the same month that I read Columbine (January 2018). That the number of shootings has actually accelerated since the April 20, 1999 attack at Columbine High School, is testament to both the gun epidemic in the United States, and a broad failure to apply lessons learned from Columbine.
As author Dave Cullen sees it, the significant takeaway on Columbine is how important early detection is for teen depression. Eric Harris was a psychopath but not necessarily beyond control. He conscripted Dylan Klebold, who spent the last years of his short life mired in depression, anger and sadness. Early detection and treatment would likely have stopped the attack from happening or even from being planned at all. There’s no way to ever know for certain, but Cullen’s plea for better help for troubled teens stands against a backdrop of dozens upon dozens of school shootings since 1999.
Cullen also holds out blame for the media for sensationalizing these types of attacks, for giving the killers the fame and notoriety that many of them seek. Local media in and around Littleton, Colorado ran stories on the shootings every day for months after. Cullen offers deliberately ghoulish advice to would-be killers to make his point: you need to go big to crack the top ten (up the body count) or go all-in for “performance violence”–spectacle murder.
Today the spectacle murders have left as many as 58 people dead at the hands of a single individual, the usual empty “thoughts and prayers” offered, while help for those that need it most goes unfulfilled, and the guns continue to pile up.
Against this, Columbine offers little hope. Cullen has researched his subject exhaustively, starting at the school less than an hour after the attack started, and kept researching and interviewing for years after, compelled to determine why and what to do with that knowledge.
He deconstructs the myths that quickly built up around the shootings–that the killers were victims of bullying, that they targeted jocks, that they were Goths or it was “The Trenchcoat Mafia” behind them. What he found is a lot simpler than all of that. Eric Harris was a full-blown psychopath and used his charm to recruit others in his nihilistic plan to exterminate “inferior” humans. He convinced others to secure weapons and supplies, but it was Klebold that he was most successful with, tapping into the existential despair of his friend and conscripting him as an ally against everyone else. The world.
While Columbine is remembered as a shooting, Cullen points out that it is only Harri’s incompetence at bomb-making that really made it that way. The intricate plans, had they worked, would have seen propane gas bombs explode in multiple locations, such as the cafeteria, to maximize casualties. Harris further planned on covering exits to pick off survivors. He wanted to kill hundreds, to destroy the school because he could not destroy the entire world.
But the bombs all fizzled.
They still killed 13 before killing themselves and Cullen details how the families of victims handled the aftermath and–in some of the few hopeful moments in the story–how some survivors overcome the shooting to triumph over the tragedy.
Columbine is not an easy read and given the climate today, it is hard to remain hopeful that anything has changed for the better (one thing that did change was the idea of creating a “perimeter defense” around the area of the shooting. This setup allowed the killers to freely wander the school for over an hour before SWAT teams entered, shooting any and all they encountered. That doctrine has been abandoned in favor of going in as soon as possible to take out the threat). Even Cullen himself admits to depression following his immersion into the story.
All this is before you even take into account all the information suppressed by local law enforcement. They knew about Harris early on, but ultimately did nothing and later covered it up. This serves to further underscore how important early detection is. The killers extensively recorded and spoke of their plans, and were largely ignored.
The book is a tough read, but it’s an important one. Too many people slip through the cracks. Cullen vividly details the events of Columbine as both lesson and warning. Highly recommended.
It would be wrong, of course, to complain about this book.
But I do have one minor concern, if I may. While author Will Bowen issues the challenge of going complaint-free for 21 days, he only addresses verbally complaining to others–face to face, like in the olden days before social media. He doesn’t specifically say if complaining on Twitter or Facebook or anywhere online still counts. I think it would, but the clarification would be nice.
Also, declaring sarcasm as complaining-with-humor (which is more or less true) would make this challenge nigh-impossible for me. I love sarcasm the way Jupiter loves gravity.
Still, I want to try, because the numerous examples of people forsaking all manner of complaining (except in their thoughts, as Bowen admits trying to police the 70,000-odd thoughts we have on average per day would be…daunting) provide compelling reasons to go complaint-free. It’s not just turning off negativity, it’s about opening yourself up to the positive, to thinking beyond problems, instead of just dwelling on them. Bowen admits that it is, to a degree, committing to a kind of self-delusion, but he asserts that those complaining are equally delusional, just in a negative, counter-productive way.
Not every story told in the book worked for me. The opening story, in which Bowen’s beloved dog is mortally injured in a hit and run, left me with too many unanswered questions. Bowen drives after the truck responsible and confronts the owner at the front step of his home. The driver is dismissive, noting how he doesn’t care and if Bowen tries to clock him in revenge, that’s assault. Bowen leaves, still in a rage, but ultimately realizes the driver has undoubtedly suffered pain in his life, enough to make him indifferent to killing an innocent dog, and he makes peace with himself over what happened. This is fine for Bowen.
But I was left wondering what an apparently unchecked sociopath like that driver would go on to do, having emerged from the incident without any repercussions. I’m not concerned about meting out punishment–the driver obviously needed help–but without any consequences for remorselessly taking out a cherished family pet, what might the driver do in the future?
Still, this story comes early and Bowen otherwise capably builds a case for going complaint-free, even as he notes how tough it is. Most people take 8-10 months before they get to 21 days in a row (the number of days was chosen as Bowen says it’s how long it takes for something to become a habit).
There really isn’t an effective counter-argument to be made for going complaint-free, unless you see anger, negativity and bitterness as strengths. Maybe if you’re The Incredible Hulk.
The book itself is a quick, easy read, and the stories shared by others are all so positive you can’t help but feel compelled to at least try. Being very much a “get it down in writing” kind of guy, I would have liked a bit more on the nuts and bolts of going complaint-free, and some of Bowen’s advice for dealing with complaint triggers is presented a bit glibly (“Get a new job! Drop your friends! Spend less time with your family!”), even if the advice is ultimately accurate.
Going complaint-free, especially with the veritable storm of negativity the media surrounds us with every day, is an immense challenge, but Bowen makes the reward sound worth it. Recommended.
Ghostland is at turns frightening and horrifying, not because of the alleged ghosts said to haunt homes, bars, hotels and other places across the U.S., but due to the sometimes unspeakably awful ways the people who lived, worked or occupied these places behaved.
In the hands of author Colin Dickey, Ghostland is an examination of how crime, class warfare, sexism, racism and more are often the root of so many ghostly appearances. Where people have suffered, Dickey argues, stories of ghosts thrive, borne variously from anxiety, guilt and loss. Sometimes the stories have an economic motivation–people making a few bucks off tours of allegedly haunted houses. Other times the stories are a way of translating some human horror–the mistreatment and abuse of slaves, for one–into something more easily-digested. As Dickey notes, “Ghost stories like [these] are a way for us to revel in the open wounds of the past while any question of responsibility for that past blurs, then fades away.”
As Dickey details the operation of massive insane asylums constructed in the mid to late 19th century, with their horrific overcrowding and cruel experimentation on patients in search of “curing” them, it seems inevitable that ghost stories would emerge from the real-life horrors that went on inside the walls of these hospitals.
Dickey also covers some well-known haunted locales, such as the Winchester Mystery House. Here he lays out evidence suggesting that Sarah Winchester didn’t keep adding rooms to the mansion to ward off the spirits of those killed by her husband’s rifles, but because she had the keen mind of an architect–and nearly limitless funds to indulge her experiments in building.
And so it goes throughout Ghostland, with Dickey deconstructing nearly every haunted place he has researched. A few that he visits give him pause, leaving him genuinely unsettled, but there is no “a-ha!” moment when he becomes convinced–or tries to convince the reader–that ghosts are real.
Rather, this is a fascinating journey through the darker parts of American history, Ghostland is well worth reading for how capably it provides rational explanations for the ghosts, poltergeists and other entities said to haunt so many corners of America’s vast landscape. Recommended.
Much like the small steps the Kaizen technique recommends, this is a small book that is quickly read, all the better to start applying its suggestions for self-improvement.
Like the ancient expression “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” the Kaizen technique is one in which improvement is seen as a gradual process, where small steps lead (eventually) to big changes. The book covers several aspects of the technique, ranging from asking “small questions” to small rewards, small actions and so on. Each chapter includes tips and examples using patients of Robert Maurer’s.
Kaizen is appealing in its simplicity and logic. When we attempt major changes (think of New Year resolutions to lose a lot of weight or give up a bad habit or addiction) we usually trigger our brain’s fight or flight response, leading to anxiety and even fear. The body refuses to cooperate. The brain goes “Nope!” and suddenly that Boston Cream you swore you’d never touch has vanished from its plate.
Instead of going cold turkey, the Kaizen technique goes to the opposite end by promoting change through small increments, sometimes so small they may seem silly. In the donut example above (mmm, donuts…) you wouldn’t just give up Boston Creams immediately. Instead, you’d buy one as usual, sit down and then skip the first bite (Kaizen doesn’t tell you what to do with that bite so you’re on your own for that). The next donut skip the first two bites and so on. Eventually you’ll get to where you aren’t ordering the donut at all–and not missing it.
I’ve used this technique myself when I started running, adopting the well-known Couch to 5K plan. The first few runs were so brief (they were more walking then running) that it felt entirely effortless. How could I not continue? By the time I reached Week 7 of 9, it was the middle of summer, blazing hot and I struggled to meet that week’s goal–but I persevered, because I had spent nearly two months slowly building to that point and it wasn’t nearly as daunting as it would have been otherwise.
One Small Step Can Change Your Life is easy to read, easy to follow and lays out the case for Kaizen in a direct and accessible manner. I really can’t see how anyone couldn’t gain some benefit from adopting its technique for at least some aspect of his or her life. Recommended.
There are plenty of books out there explaining how and why you should outline your novel. It always seems like drudgery to me and so I’ve avoided it, for the most part.
As I write this review, my attempt at National Novel Writing Month 2017 is a smoking ruin. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. It was never smoking at all, more a damp lump of coal that never caught fire. In the vernacular of Libbie Hawker’s book, I wore my pants, refused to take them off (commit to an outline) and stalled before I could get anything going. This was also my experience on several dates ten years ago.
It’s been even worse, too–sometimes I’ve committed thousands of words to a story before realizing that it was going nowhere.
Having just gone through another stall-out, I was more receptive to the idea of outlining.
Hawker’s book is brief, more a bookling than a book, but the brevity works as a strength because you’ll whip through it quickly and be able to apply its lessons all the sooner. Hawker also smartly realizes many will read the book through first before going back and using it as reference, noting where to keep a bookmark so you can jump back in when you’re ready to go.
The process she uses for outlines is simple and leans heavily on using the hero’s journey as your story’s template. She provides some wiggle room but there is a basic assumption that you will be writing about a flawed main character (or several) who is thwarted by one or more antagonists, and ultimately overcomes their flaw or at least fails to in an interesting way, completing the character arc/journey.
And she makes it seem tantalizingly simple, extolling the twin benefits of locking down your story in advance (while still leaving plenty of space to be creative once you start writing scenes and chapters) and cranking out a completed first draft significantly faster than the pants-wearing method (she has completed first drafts in as little as three weeks). Hawker references several well-known novels (an eclectic group, ranging from Lolita to Charlotte’s Web), as well as her own work to provide examples of the different parts of the outline.
In brief, she says every well-constructed novel has a Story Core that consists of a flawed character who wants something, is thwarted, struggles to overcome their flaw, then ultimately fails or succeeds. The Story Core is built on a structure she compares to a three-legged stool, consisting of Character Arc, Theme and Pacing. It sounds simple and really, it is. As mentioned above, it’s the hero’s journey, a story archetype that has been around for thousands of years. As Hawker notes, your story will shine not because it’s outrageously original, but because it’s well-told and in a voice that is distinctly your own.
Even as I was still going through Take Off Your Pants! I was imaging the outline of my still-unfinished NaNoWriMo 2014 novel, a story that is pretty solid in some ways, but a bit of a meandering mess in others. Applying Hawker’s outlining methodology, I can see what’s missing from the story and identify entire scenes that can be chucked (goodbye, thousands of words, *sob*).
Take Off Your Pants! is highly recommended to those with a fear of outlining but still willing to take another look at it. I think it’s made me a convert.
The “brain science” part in the title might make you think this is a dry, analytical approach to story construction, but Lisa Cron peppers this book with plenty of humor, often painting herself as the target, as she details a very specific approach to outlining and planning the story that will drive a novel. The brain science is basically recognition that humans are hardwired to enjoy a good story, due to how important stories were to the survival of early humans. Cron explains this better than my glib rundown would suggest, but don’t mistake this for a book about brain science. It’s not, it’s about writing a novel.
She comes down hard on so-called “pantsing” where a writer just grabs an idea and then wings it, hoping that over the course of 300 or so pages it all somehow works out (hint: most of the time it won’t and the writer will abandon the story. I can vouch for this by my amazing tower of unfinished stories, now in the running as one of the wonders of the modern world). Instead, she favors an approach where you, as the writer, are always asking questions about your story and its protagonist, the most persistent question being,”Why?”, followed closely by “And so?” The latter is asked at the end of a scene, to prompt the writer to explain how the end of the scene leads into the next. The questions prod the writer into thinking through the character’s actions and motivations before committing to the actual writing. No winging it allowed!
Cron is also an advocate of what she calls Scene Cards where each scene of the novel is explicitly detailed on a card (she recommends virtual over physical), with items like the Alpha Point, the plot (cause and effect), the consequences and so on. She rightly observes that writing software like Scrivener is pretty much tailor-made for the level of organization and planning she advocates.
You might think all of this planning would result in a story that is so predictable as to be rote and not especially fun to write, but Cron notes that there is always plenty of room for developments to grow organically and take off in one of several directions–as long as those directions continue to work in service to the protagonist and her motivations/beliefs.
I’m not sure I could commit to the level of planning Cron suggests, but I can’t deny that a writer who does is bound to come up with a story that is solid and able to pull a reader through to the end. In a way the approach reminds me of bestsellers that are derided for the quality of the writing (Shades of Grey, Dan Brown novels) but are successful due to other strengths, such as the storytelling (I’ll admit to never having read a Dan Brown novel, so I’m assuming there’s something other than the prose that compels people to read his books). Even if you don’t write deathless prose, following Cron’s method may still produce something people will enjoy reading.
Story Genius is made more entertaining as Cron enlists one of her friends and fellow author/writing coach, Jennie Nash, to follow Cron’s technique in developing a new novel. The reader gets to watch the development of this novel’s protagonist (a woman who refuses to get close to others for fear of getting hurt and ends up kidnapping a dog and, well, it gets complicated) and how all the parts of the story–background, supporting characters, motivations and so on, come together to create a compelling whole. I was a bit disappointed that the end result of Nash’s work was not made more clear.
All told, this is a meticulous approach to novel-writing and one that will likely bear fruit for the writer who is willing to commit to the techniques described. Heck, even only following some of the techniques, like always asking why, or compiling Scene Cards in the way Cron describes, will likely result in a stronger story. Recommended especially for people who love plotting.
This book is like the perfect date for a grammar geek. It’s funny, smart, reasonable, and hates semicolons.
June Casagrande does an excellent job of guiding writers through the pitfalls of crafting a sentence, carefully illustrating the many ways one can fumble with just a few words. She offers solid instruction on how to avoid the pitfalls, be on guard for common errors, and generally improve the sentences that form the foundation for all writing, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction.
The book ends with some useful appendices, too, though the first one–humbly titled Grammar for Writers–may cause unpleasant flashbacks to English class, depending on the individual. If seeing “Subject + transitive verb + direct object + object complement” gives you the willies, know that Casagrande explains everything carefully, concisely and with a fair amount of humor.
I tend to intuit what works and doesn’t work in a sentence without being able to precisely identify a prepositional phrase or a nonfinite clause, so much of this book felt like a remedial course. I don’t mean that as a negative, either. It’s an excellent guide and Casagrande repeatedly emphasizes that you don’t need to memorize every rule (or variation of the same), that you can–and should–break out a dictionary or two when in doubt, and breaking rules is completely okay, provided you actually understand the rules you’re breaking.
Overall, this is an excellent and entertaining guide to grammar. I feel like any grammatical goofs I’ve made in this review will carry extra shame for me, having read this spiffy primer.
Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction by Grady Hendrix
