Customer Reviews

Word Painting: A Guide to Write More Descriptively

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I'm so pleased with this book that it's tough to figure out where to start. The author talks about working description into our stories. She could have steered us in the direction of pages and pages of static description, yet she doesn't. She could have pushed us in the direction of tired and overused techniques (having the weather too obviously match up with what's going on in the story, for example), yet she didn't. Ms. McClanahan happily points out pitfalls, trite and overused techniques, and things to beware of at all stages. Her exercises back this up, helping us to subvert the expected. She also has a wonderful, quirky sense of humor, and uses her own advice on writing descriptively to turn what could have been a dry textbook into a beautiful and inspiring, fun-to-read book.

This book has no large margins. No space-gobbling quotes. No blank space for doing the (very helpful) exercises. No overly large font or ridiculous line-spacing. None of the traditional tricks for making writing books seem larger than they actually are. This book is every bit as thick with useful information as it looks.

The range of topics covered in this book in relation to description is phenomenal. I could spend pages listing out the topics covered (and how well they're dealt with!), such as metaphor, "bringing characters to life through description," point of view, setting, narrative, the senses, and on and on.

Whether you write fiction, non-fiction, or poetry, this book can make your writing sing. I have a better notion of where my weaknesses as a writer lie, and how I might turn them into strengths. And that's some of the highest praise I can give to a writing book! This is truly one of my favorite writing books, and it's well worth a writer's time and money to read it.

Word Painting by Rebecca McClanahan is, without a doubt, one of the best writing related books I have ever purchased. Oh, other reference books have come and gone -- mostly to an auction site or a used bookstore -- but Word Painting is one that stays on my shelf and won't be going anywhere.

Is it a book heavy on technical information? Absolutely. At times it reads like a textbook for a writing class, so that might surprise some. But the more I read this book (and I go back to re-read it regularly) the more I learn. To say that Word Painting is merely a book that teaches you how to write more descriptively would be an injustice to the material contained inside.

Word Painting tackles all the standard writing "must knows" like tenses and points of view, moves on to the art of creating your own, unique similes and metaphors (avoiding the cliche), tackles passive vs. active & cluttered vs. uncluttered prose, then moves on to the biggies like setting, and how writing descriptively weaves into narration, description, and exposition to form the larger framework of your overall story...how writing descriptively affects your narrative voice.

McClanahan teaches you to look at the world, people and things around you with an "artist's" eye, noticing texture and sound and light, then guides you through translating what you see and hear and smell and touch onto the page in words so the reader can experience that with you.

Not only did this book teach me the importance of description and how it helps shape a story, it taught me the importance of all the various elements of fiction writing AND how to write them in a balance. Each chapter is full of useful information, but I'm not going to lie and say that it's not heavy reading. It is. But then writing is an art and a skill and it takes time, dedication, and the willingness to hone your skills into the craft. This is not light afternoon reading, and it's definitely a book you have to keep coming back to again and again because what you missed one time will click in the next, then something else the next. To me, that's an indispensable writing tool because it's not a one shot deal like so many other books that you buy, read once, then never read again. Word Painting -- like your writing -- is an evolving book that grows with you.

When people ask me for "how to write" book recommendations, Word Painting is first (and often only) book that comes to mind.

This book is a valuable tool for any writer, and I have been recommending it to all my students here at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. Teachers, especially those who work with beginning creative writers in a community setting, will find the incredible exercises listed at the end of each chapter invaluable. I find myself asking, why didn't I think of that one? The examples she uses to illustrate her comments on using all five senses are drawn from the classics and from contemporary sources, all chosen for Virginia Woolf's "common reader." The language is very readable and approachable; and the charm and enthusiasm of the writer comes through. This is the best teaching tool I have bought in years.

This book has been a godsend to me. It's been enormously helpful in doing the final edit of my novel. Reading it made me feel like I had my own personal editor. The conversational tone of the book is inviting, nurturing, and encouraging. Any discussion of point of view usually makes me groan, but the way Rebecca McClanahan writes about it is exceptionally sane, enthralling even.

The author is a master teacher, writer, and reader. Rebecca McClanahan is generous in sharing the secrets of her fine craft.

This book would be fabulous for intermediate to advanced writers to read at least once a year to help keep the pencil sharp. The writing exercises are provocative and creative.

This book showed me many things I would never have learned on my own. It made me want to be a better writer.

My copy is dog-eared and full of high-lighted notations. As a fiction writer, I wanted a guide to help me write more vivid scenes. This book showed me how to use sensory details without overloading the reader. It also shows how to make your reader become a part of your story by mixing action and description. The book is not only for fiction writers. Her concepts are also applicable to non-fiction, essay, memoir, and poetry writing. Each chapter includes writing practice exercises. It's not a typical how-to write book which focuses on the "rules of writing." It's a must-have for anyone who writes anything.
~Rita Marie Keller, author of LIVING IN THE CITY

Word Painting was recommended by an excellent writer. I ended up reading the book, cover to cover, four times. Each time I came away with numerous fresh ideas. This book does more than lay down and explain a list of rules. It also draws from the works and advice of great authors in a way that makes reading the book enjoyable as well as instructive. Ms. McClanahan's own experiences, as related in the book, were particularly beneficial, often coming back to remind me how I could make the passage before me more palatable to the reader. The exercises were not as helpful to me as they might be for others, but they are marvelous drills for the more disiplined reader. Whether you want to improve your ability to write a novel, a report, a legal brief, a letter or an e-mail message, try this book!

I am not an aspiring author nor any intention of becoming one. I was just searching for help to make my writing stand up from the pages, climb into the memory cavities of my friends' and colleagues' brian and remain anchored there until eternity. Rebecca McClanahan explains in a very humorous manner with many examples how to use verbs, tone, distance, setting and smell to liven up our writing. I read this book while making my daily train commute to work. I found myself bursting out in laughter several times, attracting the stares of fellow commuters as if I had added some type of hallucinogenic drugs in my coffee. On three occassions, I was so involved in the book that I missed my station stop. This book exercised some type of hypnotical powers over my descriptive starved brain.
Why did this book have such an effect on me? Is it because I am not a writer and all of this is new to me? If my high school creative writing teacher would have taught only 10 percent of the techniques as she does, I would have probably been motivated to chose a writing career.

You know how when you're reading a good book and you can actually visualize the characters and their surroundings? This book clearly explains how you can write like that.

Rebecca McClanahan doesn't just talk "at" you either. After every chapter, there's a whole series of exercises based on what you've just read. So you're actually applying what you've learned.

Word Painting helps make your writing picture perfect!

Word Painting

While Word Painting is a book to help one write more descriptively, that is only a part of its value. Journey along with McClanahan to discover what description is and how it differs from person to person. Discription, she states, is word painting--that part of your book that helps the reader to visualize. It doesn't have to be intricate detail, but it has to be effective.

Through the book's ten chapters, the author shows you how to write descriptively and effectively through exercises in observation, through proper naming of things, through active, vivid prose and action verbs, through all the senses. There's a lesson in metaphors, how to describe character through environment and how to handle point of view shifts. Another chapter explains plot and pacing, and at the end of each chapter there are a series of exercises to illustrate each topic.

I especially like the chapter on using setting to illuminate a story's theme. McClanahan, using examples from Eudora Welty's No Place to Breathe, shows how the character's emotions are revealed by setting.

This is a book to study once, and then study again.

Recommended.

Word Painting is the ideal title for this book. The author shows you how to bring all of the senses into your writing to make it become a palpable living entity. You'll learn how to "penetrate layers of the reader's consciousnness, blasting right through his neocortex and into the mammalian and reptilian brain". Your writing will never be the same after you do the practice exercises in this book. Get it. -Linda Fry Kenzle, author of Pages