Customer Reviews

Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'm surprised I'm the first person to review this book! Having recently read a half-dozen other titles on the subject, I find myself coming back to this one again and again. If you want to start writing creative nonfiction RIGHT NOW, this is the book for you. It's extremely well-written and accessible.

Each chapter offers plenty of exercises for the individual writer and variations on the exercises for writing groups. All of the various forms of creative nonfiction are explained, as well as the challenges they entail.

The authors divide the book into three major parts focusing on "unearthing" the material, the forms of creative nonfiction, and "honing your craft." They discuss such topics as sentence rhythm, exposition versus scene, the pitfalls of "revenge prose," basics of good writing, mining your memory, and writing groups.

There is a very good bibliography and plenty of brief examples of other writers' work. In short, a wealth of information can be found between the covers of this slim 185-page book. Buy this book before you buy any other book on writing creative nonfiction.

I've gone round and round trying to find a reasonably good text for a creative nonfiction course I'm teaching in the spring. Tell It Slant was sitting on my bookshelf, so I picked it up one day. It gets to the point, offers excellent, accessible advice, and allows me to teach writing. For a complete novice, it might be too little, but for an experienced writer and teacher, it's an excellent introduction to creative nonfiction. My sole complaint is that it's overpriced. I suspect that's a result of it's textbook classification, a pet-peeve of mine. Students shouldn't have to pay $40 for a paperback, or for any textbook for that matter.

Even so, that's not the authors' fault, and I highly recommend this book.

Ralph Wahlstrom

The best way to learn to write well is to read quality writing, and the pieces in "TIS" are very well-written and well-chosen to demonstrate particular elements of good writing.

I purchased this text because it was required reading for a creative writing class. After reading several of the chapters, I find myself disappointed with it. Although Miller and Paolo do provide a useful overview of different styles of nonfiction, as well as references to strong writers within the genre, I was less impressed with their suggestions for a new writer. The book tends towards the overly flowery, from my point of view, and has some writing prompts that I find ridiculous or overly simplistic. In a chapter on writing about family, for example, one prompt encourages the writer to "describe every member of your family in terms of a part of the body ... Look at belly buttons, fingerprints, moles, toe-nails, or tongues" (23). Another section asks the writer to create an essay around three time periods in the person's life, all written in present tense, before trying to find a connection between them. While I don't doubt that effective essays can be written around the prompts in the book, I did not find them helpful in addressing the different ideas in which I am personally invested.

I should note that I am a graduate student and have taken several nonfiction classes, so my expectations for the text are possibly different than those of someone looking for an introduction to creative nonfiction. If you want to write nonfiction but struggle to come up with your own topic, then this book's basic prompts might be helpful to get you started (before you hopefully move on to other texts). If, however, you already have ideas but want better advice on how to strengthen your actual writing, I do not recommend this work at all.

Instead, may I suggest In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction, edited by Lee Gutkind, which is a wonderful anthology of creative nonfiction? I enjoyed almost all of the essays in this collection. I found them to be far more useful and telling about great writing practices (and topics!) than most "How To" writing books.

Tell It Slant is an exceptional work on memoir and non-fiction writing. Clear. Clean. Creative. It is accessible to writers of all levels from entrance level to the most experienced. Miller and Paola offer writers many exercises and ways of processing information. A must for people truly interested in generating some non-fiction.

Outstanding book for any one serious about learning the craft of creative non-fiction writing (memoirs, personal essays, nature essays, etc.). A large anthology section of successful writer essays and short stories further illustrates (by example) the various proven style formats, use of sensory descriptions, character development, effective use of dialog, and the like, covered within each easy to read chapter. Highly recommended.

This book was assigned as a text in an advanced writing class I have just finished. I took to it right away, long before class and found that reading it was impacting my life and sleep schedule. I would read through half a chapter and be inspired and then spend the next 4-12 hours writing. I have the Kindle version and would read it at night in hopes of falling asleep, only to have my partner take my iPad away from me at 5am and get SOME sleep before class. Tell It Slant means - Tell it your way, with your "slant" or "spin" on things. It legitimizes the creative non-fiction genre and has me writing more than I have in years. You don't have to read it linearly, we didn't. This book provides a great cure for writers block. A definite keeper.

While we often think of "slant" as bad, telling our stories "slant" simply means finding a point of view from which to tell the story. Great advice.

This book was recommended by my writing coach, and I think it's really helpful. I'm writing my memoirs, and there are many helps for that particular genre. Many different authors are quoted, books and magazines and internet sources that can help the writer are there. I think it lays the foundation for good writing, and the exercises at the end of each chapter are pertinent and challenging. It sets a "high bar" to reach, but for those who want to write a beautiful book, this is a must.

Any creative nonfiction writer seeking a how-to approach in this book will be disappointed. It is long on extracts from other published works with comments; however, is short on specific writing techniques. Overall, after reading the book, one gets a general feel of what creative nonfiction is, not the nuts and bolts of producing it.