Customer Reviews

Creativity Rules: A Writer's Workbook

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I have shelves and shelves of books on writer's techniques, the writer's life, writer's dreams, writer's habits, overcoming writer's block, etc., etc., etc. They are on my shelves because after I read them, that's where I put them. Creativity Rules! does not share space with those books. It's on my desk next to my writing spiral. It's like a basic fiction writing class in which the author speaks in a soothing voice--low and encouraging. Each tiny lesson builds on the tiny lesson before it, and before you know it, you've got some ideas and then a sentence or two and then - what's this? - a story. If you've been dissatisfied with other how-to books, give this one a try. You'll be writing before you know what hit you.

In Creativity Rules!: A Writer's Workbook, television writer, teacher and consultant John Vorhaus draws upon his years of experience and expertise to create a complete approach to literary creativity and the creative process including making creative choices with confidence, improving access to our ideas, effectively resolving writer's block, inventing plots and characters, quickly generating stories and themes, and developing a daily discipline and practice of writing. Articulate, comprehensive, insightful, effective, practical, Creativity Rules! is "must" reading for anyone seeking to become professional and successful in their writing career regardless of the genre or media they choose to work in.

For anyone interested in screenwriting, the good Mr Vorhaus'first book "The Comic Toolbox" is a must, even they were notparticularly aiming at the comic genre. In fact I have urged all myscreenwriter-wannabe friends to try it.

Someone has obviously said to Mr Vorhaus that there was a wider audience for his excellent views on writing and the writer's approach. He could have simply re-written CTX for the broader market, and repackaged it, but fortunately for us he has gone much further in expanding on his themes. For example, his previous excellent concept of the "Comic Perspective" has been further defined into into more focussed motivations which drive a character.

His chapter on getting over writer's block is worth the cover price alone, and there is also chapters with great advice on many aspects of writing.

Mr Vorhaus is totally honest with the reader -- occasionally painfully so -- however I do not believe his own character comes forth in Creativity Rules as it did in CTX. I was thinking this especially so in the early chapters.

I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone interested in writing, particularly screenwriting.

I can't tell you how long I've been looking for this kind of information. All the theory I've read about stories seemed to make perfectly good sense until I sit down to actually write a solid story on my own. Then I suddenly start drowning in my own words, feeling often as though I am losing my mind (I'm not joking). This book holds all those insights and keys to good writing that have been eluding me for so long. And it's so simple! All I can say is bless this guy's soul for sharing this with the world. I cannot praise Vorhaus and his ridiculously simple book enough!

P.S. Another good book (especially for the intricacies of weaving a complex story) is Building Better Plots, by Robert Kernen.

I recieved this book as a gift (Thank you, Raxum!) and from the first few minutes I worked from it, I was scribbling away.... not exactly "filling pages" yet, but writing SOMETHING. It's more than I've done in a long time.
The book is written in a style that makes sense and leaves me wanting to try out the ideas, to see if they WILL work for me.
Overall, I find it a great and fun book to work with.

No one writes like Vorhaus. His books are practical, funny, and they provide actionable techniques developed by professional working writers, not academics. I was feeling stuck and despairing before I revisited "Creativity Rules!" and now I'm back on track, generating ideas for characters, plots, etc. Vorhaus' genius lies in isolating techniques, breaking them down to small chunks that even a blockhead like me can understand. He then has you drill those chunks until you get fluent with them. Eminently useful and a pleasure to read. Not recommended for people who "would like to write someday"--this book is meant to be used by writers who write.