Customer Reviews

The Playful Way to Serious Writing

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I have free-lanced as a comic book writer since 1997. The money has been alright, but what I have sought is the sheer, incomparable fun of making up stories, of having characters I made up come alive. Last year, I hit a dry spell. I could come up with decent ideas and force myself to write them down, but the fun, the magic, had disappeared. Everything I came up with was drab and contrived, the writing was mechanical, riddled with clichés and cardboard solutions. I didn't know what to do. My mood soured, slowly the world started turning to stone. One day in December I came across Roberta Allen's THE PLAYFUL WAY TO SERIOUS WRITING. From then on, things began turning around. Her book describes the most original and powerful cure for writer's block that I have found. Every day I'll do two, three exercises from the book to get me started, and sometimes I'll use the techniques to do the actual work. Most importantly, using her method, I have discovered that the juice, the magic, the white light, that special something that makes it all worthwhile, has returned.

In this book, Roberta Allen says "pressure brings energy to the surface." The book explains how tapping into the energy of a moment is the key to bringing out the flow of writing.

The book has many photos and lines to stimulate response. It's an energizing book to read, and the kind that you stop reading so you can go write!

I've read and taught many writing techniques to get people writing and this book was a fabulous find. Though using a timer seemed unnecessary to do the writing, I tried the five-minute technique. The emotional energy I felt in a word, picture, or memory DID move the writing forward in a playful, yet productive way. This technique injects a gaming element into what could be a drudge.

I normally write non-fiction and poetry, but have never been able to enjoy writing fiction. Using this approach of "finding the energy" has energized my fiction process as I follow the energy to new action, characters, and scenes.

I have reviewed a lot of how-to books for writers; this one truly fills a niche. I've read how-tos that could help in one's personal life (like "Word Works") and how-tos like Syd Field's that give great advice for screenwriters and also might help novelists. I've also contributed to an e-book called "Musings" that ruminates on life, love and the written word. This, however, is the first I've seen that is quite this flexible.

As a former teacher, I can see "The Playful Way to Serious Writing" by Roberta Allen as a tool for elementary teachers, art teachers, photography teachers, English and creative writing teachers. Allen is a photographer and artist as well as a writer and this book is the most visual, the most appealing and the most practical exercise book yet.

That it is also fun is definitely a plus. I shall probably use my copy when speaking to genealogy groups about how to turn their heritage into readable stories. I plan to take a couple of the exercises in the book to my critique group (boy, will they be surprised!) and I plan to use a couple of Allen's graphically delightful pages when I tutor my Korean students. These pages weren't meant for that but think of the ESL possibilities in phrases like "a goatee" and "a potbelly." Immigrants often have the English basics. It is the colloquial phrases that throw them.

If you happen to run across this book on the shelf of your bookstore, grab a copy and open it. Leaf through the pages. It will get all of your creative juices flowing.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of "This is the Place"

As a child who grew up in the fifties loving to play with words more than with my Barbie doll, I was inspired and delighted by this "Anything-Can-Happen" book by Roberta Allen.

I literally stumbled on "The Playful Way to Serious Writing" while putting together a writing workshop for children. After testing out a number of the exercises on myself, my own imagination began to soar.

This book is designed for all ages sparking a sense of energy and freshness that can be applied to any form of writing.The children delighted in these exercises and were writing even when not "assigned."

I am a Lutheran Pastor and a trained psychotherapist working in a congregation that is racially, economically, and educationally diverse. I especially appreciated the way Roberta Allen made her book accessible to a wide population. Her photography as well as the way she uses words, numbers, and shapes makes this book highly adaptable.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves to write, anyone who hates to write, and to anyone who needs more play time in their lives. This is definitely one for your holiday gift list!

The author of "The Playful Way to Serious Writing" says that her methods have been used by writers of Ph.D. dissertations, school teachers, writers' workshops, screenwriters and more. That's quite a wide variety of people doing writing, so this volume of exercises is not limited to fiction, non-fiction or drama--or to students or professionals.

One set of exercises are word-play on "before" and "after"--"Before the Texan could say another word..." or"After he cancelled the wedding" and some are pictorial, where you look at an illustration in the book and create a writing piece based on some aspect. Another involves the concept of energy; pick a moment in your life that may have been brief but full of energy. Which of these characters has more energy, ie. a rollerblader or a priest. The idea is to stimulate both the left and the right brain to tempt your mind to create some creative writing. These exercises are like yeast--a pinch can get you to rise to the occasion.

If you can't attend a writers' workshop, this might be helpful to you. And if you teach a class on writing, whether middle school or university, there is a lot here for class ideas. I found some of the exercises intriguing, and I have had a lot of fun in the past doing writing stimulated by such exercises. It's surprising what you can come up with. Give it a try.

"The Playful Way to Serious Writing" is by Roberta Allen, the author of "Fast Fiction." In both books, Allen advocates the use of free writing in order to access your creativity. The idea is that you take a "prompt" or exercise of some kind, set a timer for 5, 10, or 15 minutes, and then write. This isn't the kind of writing where you plan and organize and outline--you just write whatever comes into your head and keep writing. This is supposed to help you turn off your inner critic and get down to the really creative stuff. In "Fast Fiction," Allen specifically applied this technique to the creation of the short-short story, and to the creation of longer pieces of writing from smaller building-blocks. In "The Playful Way to Serious Writing," she's sticking with the simple idea of just getting started and being creative, without worrying about what comes next.

Allen does a wonderful job of establishing a childlike tone to the book. The font is large and plain, and looks a bit like a child's handwriting. The sentences are short and direct, kind of like what you'd expect to hear from a child. Allen discusses events from her own childhood, and the prompts seem to evoke a child's curiosity and lack of understanding about the world. She talks about the energy that some words and ideas have, always capitalizing it ("ENERGY")--it seems a little bit silly, but again, it's the sort of thing you can imagine a child doing. This helps to establish a tone and sense of freedom--it helps to disable that inner critic so the child in you can come out and play without fear.

There isn't much to distinguish the prompts and exercises themselves from those in any other writing book (like Heffron's "The Writer's Idea Book," Shaw's "Writerrific," or Rekulak's "The Writer's Block"). But the tone of the book itself is certainly more conducive to helping us shed our serious, adult critic-minds and return to a more playful, childlike attitude. And this can be a handy thing for anyone having trouble tapping into their creative side. This approach isn't for everyone, but if it sounds like fun, you might enjoy this book!

I teach a writing workshop, and this time around, we've been using The Playful Way. It's a wonderful book, full of interesting and...as others have mentioned, FUN exercises. I really like the combination of written and visual cues and feel as though they honor different writers' ways of seeing the world. Some beginning writers do fine with verbal suggestions, but for others, having a wonderful photo to use as a catalyst can make all the difference between a moving pen and a static one.

I also like the use of a timer, though I must say my students sometimes balk at it. They get so involved in the exercises, they just want to keep going!

Whether you're a beginning writer or an old pro, The Playful Way to Serious Writing will help you to get and keep the pen moving.

This fun book provides a lot of exercises to help further your skills, and find some new ones. I recommend to anyone who is looking to do something a little different with their writing.

One of the many challenges in writing and teaching writing is knowing how, when and where to begin. The exercises in this book take care of that for you. They are curious, challenging, and creative.

The use of the timer is particularly helpful because it foucuses the writer/student/teacher into a finite period of time. There is less chance of judging and more opportunity to just do it!

I am a teacher and have found this book a great way to start writing class. The ideas here are, as someone else said, fun, fun, fun!

For beginners only. There is nothing here but the kind of exercises you get in a beginning writer's class, coupled with plenty of pictures and oversized print. There is NOTHING on the craft of writing, nothing to help you become a better writer.