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280 reviews for:
Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew
Ursula K. Le Guin
4.29 AVERAGE
280 reviews for:
Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew
Ursula K. Le Guin
4.29 AVERAGE
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
challenging
informative
medium-paced
Enjoyable, but kind of all over the place. Jumped from one topic to another, which is fine in an informative book, but since it didn't cover all the topics, it seemed arbitrary and disjointed. Still a wonderful guide, but not a how-to write. This book expects you to know all the basics and assists with refining some of them.
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
I love this book, but I wish I came to it much younger and with wetter hinder ears. Perfect for new writers and teachers of writing. I may adopt one or two of the exercises for my classes.
This is one of those books I picked up here and there and read a page or two. Finally read the last two pages!
This is one of those books I picked up here and there and read a page or two. Finally read the last two pages!
Took me forever to write my way through this, but it was very worthwhile! The last exercise had to be the hardest. Cutting half of the words out of a piece feels brutal, but it comes out so sharp and lean. Hopefully these lessons stick with me.
medium-paced
This is a very slim book, but Ursula K. Le Guin was a lifelong master of concision—many of her novellas are as full of ideas and incident as vast doorstops by lesser writers, and Steering the craft is no different. It's ostensibly a narrative writing manual, each chapter addressing a different facet of that discipline, followed by some exemplars and exercises. As such, it's also a guide to Le Guin's perspective on the craft, and likely to be of interest to anyone who loves her work. Much of what she has to say here will be familiar to anyone who's applied themselves to the art of fiction, but her positions are her own, and frequently at variance with the creative writing orthodoxies to be found in academia, for example. She's very hot on the technical stuff—on the necessity of playing in time and in tune, to coin an obvious metaphor. She doesn't belabour it, just points out that grammar is the toolbox of the writer's trade, and that if they don't know the names and purposes of the tools that are in it, their work is liable to be rickety. Another metaphor—somehow it's easier to illustrate why writing needs to do these things by recourse to the absurdities of badly made furniture, or ineptly performed music. I found Le Guin's emphasis validating, as I often feel I'm in a bit of a minority, and it can be hard to explain why people who 'just want a good story' would be better served by writing that is technically accurate and that moves with a strong, fluid rhythm. There are certainly editors at major publishing houses who don't seem to care (judging by the books they publish), and I sometimes wonder why I'm trying so hard. Well it's not just me. It's me and my mate Ursula. She cared, and this book is not just a great guide to good writing, but a compelling argument for its importance.
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
muito interessante!! não fiz todos os exercícios ((ainda)) mas os que fiz já foram muito enriquecedores. adorei também os exemplos que ela agrega as explicações
challenging
informative
slow-paced
This is a must-read for all writers. Unlike other craft books I’ve read, this doesn’t focus on the how-to- how to write a story/book/character/setting etc.- it focuses on prose. It’s full of challenging exercises that will change the way you write on the word-level.
For example- one exercise asks you to write a whole descriptive passage with no adjectives or adverbs, which helps you lean less on these parts of speech and leverage the power of verbs and nouns. And, later on, exercises challenge you to choose how to frame a narrative by writing the same story from different characters’ viewpoints, at different points in the story’s timeline, in different perspectives (first-person, third-person, closed and omniscient, etc), in different tenses, etc. Seemingly simple but, in fact, very challenging and insightful stuff!
It took me 2.5 years- two and a half years! (oof... this is really going to skew my "average time to finish" metric for the year, isn't it)- to get through this because I really wanted to absorb each of the exercises, so I only completed them when I had enough time and energy to truly focus on them- which, during college, and now with a brain-numbing full-time job, was hard to come by.
I can confidently say this book has challenged me deeply and made me a much stronger writer! I bow at the altar of Ursula K. Le Guin; not only is she the best science fiction writer I've ever read, but she was a master teacher, as well. Rest in peace.
For example- one exercise asks you to write a whole descriptive passage with no adjectives or adverbs, which helps you lean less on these parts of speech and leverage the power of verbs and nouns. And, later on, exercises challenge you to choose how to frame a narrative by writing the same story from different characters’ viewpoints, at different points in the story’s timeline, in different perspectives (first-person, third-person, closed and omniscient, etc), in different tenses, etc. Seemingly simple but, in fact, very challenging and insightful stuff!
It took me 2.5 years- two and a half years! (oof... this is really going to skew my "average time to finish" metric for the year, isn't it)- to get through this because I really wanted to absorb each of the exercises, so I only completed them when I had enough time and energy to truly focus on them- which, during college, and now with a brain-numbing full-time job, was hard to come by.
I can confidently say this book has challenged me deeply and made me a much stronger writer! I bow at the altar of Ursula K. Le Guin; not only is she the best science fiction writer I've ever read, but she was a master teacher, as well. Rest in peace.