Bestselling author Elizabeth George has spent years teaching writing, and in Write Away she shares her knowledge of the creative process. George combines clear, intelligent, and functional advice on fiction writing with anecdotes from her own life, the story of her journey to publication, and inside information on how she meticulously researches and writes her novels. George's solid understanding of craft is conveyed in the enticing manner of a true storyteller, making Write Away not only a marvelous, interesting, and informative book but also a glimpse inside the world of a beloved writer.
Write Away: One Writer's Approach to the Novel
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Book Description
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Here's a useful book for the novice writer battling the fears and insecurities that attend when she contemplates her first novel. Highly successful as the writer of a dozen novels of suspense (A Place of Hiding, etc.) and a teacher with significant experience, George reveals that those same fears and insecurities still bedevil her. She quickly moves beyond that to a consideration of the craft of writing-mastering the tools and techniques that a writer needs in order to create art. While George illustrates her points with passages from both her own works and those of numerous writers she admires (Martin Cruz Smith, Barbara Kingsolver, Louise Erdrich, Michael Dorris), this remains more of a how-I-do-it book than a how-to-do-it book. Thus George will typically discuss an aspect of writing, such as creating the landscape of a novel, illustrate it with examples from various writers and then show how she approaches it. The result is an informative, instructive and idiosyncratic examination of the structure of the novel and of one writer's rigorously disciplined approach to creating one. George makes clear that writing is a job and that mastering the tools and techniques of the craft can go a long way toward making a writer successful. Finally, she advocates self-discipline, or what Bryce Courtenay (The Power of One) calls "bum glue." As George puts it, "A lot of writing is simply showing up... day after day, same time and same place." Both aspiring writers and fans of George's novels should enjoy the author's insights into the creative process.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
“An impressively thorough and down-to-earth guide...a perfect DIY guide for the determined new novelist.” (Sunday Times (London))
“Elizabeth George knows her stuff. How well she knows it is readily apparent in Write Away.” (Bookreporter.com)
“An inclusive and enlightening examination of George’s thoughts on the craft of writing.” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
“You should buy the book to learn her novel-writing specifics. They’re there in spades.” (Orange County Register)
“A fabulous book for writers.” (Birmingham News)
“Elizabeth George knows her stuff. How well she knows it is readily apparent in Write Away.” (Bookreporter.com)
“An inclusive and enlightening examination of George’s thoughts on the craft of writing.” (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
“You should buy the book to learn her novel-writing specifics. They’re there in spades.” (Orange County Register)
“A fabulous book for writers.” (Birmingham News)
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More About the Author
Elizabeth George is the New York Times bestselling author of fourteen novels of psychological suspense, one book of nonfiction, and two short-story collections. Her work has been honored with the Anthony and Agatha awards, the Grand Prix de LittÉrature PoliciÈre, and the MIMI, Germany's prestigious prize for suspense fiction. She lives in Washington State.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
55 of 59 people found the following review helpful
By Bookreporter
Format:Hardcover
Full disclosure: Elizabeth George is one of my all-time favorite mystery writers --- actually, George, like the others on that shortlist (including P.D. James and Ruth Rendell), writes in a more specific arm of the genre, known as the "literary mystery." What this means to readers is that the books these authors produce have complex characters, beautifully constructed (sometimes intricate) plots and fine, subtle use of language that manages to simultaneously contribute to the mystery at hand and to delight on its own.
What this means to writers is that Elizabeth George knows her stuff. How well she knows it is readily apparent in WRITE AWAY: One Novelist's Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life, because she grounds most of her instructional examples in excerpts from great literature, including classics like TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and modern suspense/thriller novels such as MYSTIC RIVER. George taught English at El Toro High School in Huntington Beach, California for over a decade before turning her back away from the lectern and towards her computer screen in the mid-1980s, and she now frequently teaches creative writing. Her pedantry is of the pleasant variety, meant not to bury potential writers but to encourage them.
Still, this book does have its pedantic moments, especially as George elucidates her process. One of the most important parts of her process is creating a "character map" before she begins her first draft. As she explained why and how she does this, it made perfect sense --- for her. I love reading literary mysteries, but they are not a genre I'm likely to write myself. WRITE AWAY, at first, seemed to me to be an excellent way to learn about how to write an Elizabeth George novel. Indeed, it's not as if she's hiding what she's doing: her subtitle says it all. And she begins each chapter with a brief section from one of her own journals kept while writing in order to show that even published authors get the blues.
Yet, from the moment I began to read George's book, I was drawn in by her enthusiasm for writing. She may have been describing what works for her, but her energy and excitement made me want to discover what works best for me. George is quite right when she says that she is puzzled by those who believe writing can't be taught; it is, after all, at least halfways a craft. In the sections where she discusses different techniques as "tools" and says that using these well is part of a building process, she reminded me that artisanal skill can be just as important as artistic inspiration.
George also reminds would-be, struggling and working writers that all the art and craft in the world can't help if you don't have discipline; her chapter titled "The Value of Bum Glue" (that colorful noun taken from Australian bestselling author Bryce Courtenay) should be read by every writer and writing student in the country. But one of the last things she hits on, while not new under the sun, is made urgent again by her own thoughtful, elegant prose: "Lots of people want to have written; they don't want to write. In other words, they want to see their name on the front cover of a book and their grinning picture on the back. But this is what comes at the end of a job, not at the beginning. To reach that end you have to be willing just to set it aside, knowing that it may never happen at all but not much caring because it's the writing that matters to you; it's the mystery and the magic of putting words on paper that are truly important. If you don't feel this way, then you want to be an author, not a writer."
On one hand, I wonder why she didn't put that up front. On the other, I see exactly why she saved these words for last. Great mystery writer that she is, Elizabeth George has forced us to march through the forest tree by tree before revealing her secret.
--- Reviewed by Bethanne Kelly Patrick
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The author, Elizabeth George, presents the process she follows when writing novels. She does not present it as a panacea but describes the benefits of her approach. The author says she's left-brained and must plan her novels. She also says she must start with the main characters first, and after they are well devloped the story nearly writes itself. She also believes in researching out her setting because she wants the settings to be be as realistic as possible. She may combine the descriptions of several real buildings into one scene. I think her discussions of characters, setting, and her overall process are the best parts of her book.
Her process can be summarized as: come up with the Idea for the story, develop it further into an Expanded Idea (read the book for details), invent the Primary Initiating Event, derive the initial cut of the Characters, develop detailed Biographies for them, Research the story (how to do it), create the Characters, create the Settings, create a Step Outline (phrases for each of 15 or so scenes, all scenes placed on one page), then create a Plot Outline (stream-of-consciousness expansion of each scene), write the Rough Draft, do a Fast Read, write an Editorial Letter to yourself describing the deep changes needed, Second Revision, have the Second Draft read by an informed reader (the Cold Reader), do a Third Draft, mail it off.
There's much more than this process discussed: dialog, subtexting, THAD's, etc.
I enjoyed the book very much and was most pleased with the practical advice by this author.
John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX
Her process can be summarized as: come up with the Idea for the story, develop it further into an Expanded Idea (read the book for details), invent the Primary Initiating Event, derive the initial cut of the Characters, develop detailed Biographies for them, Research the story (how to do it), create the Characters, create the Settings, create a Step Outline (phrases for each of 15 or so scenes, all scenes placed on one page), then create a Plot Outline (stream-of-consciousness expansion of each scene), write the Rough Draft, do a Fast Read, write an Editorial Letter to yourself describing the deep changes needed, Second Revision, have the Second Draft read by an informed reader (the Cold Reader), do a Third Draft, mail it off.
There's much more than this process discussed: dialog, subtexting, THAD's, etc.
I enjoyed the book very much and was most pleased with the practical advice by this author.
John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
The author's fans will like this book; the rest should look elsewhere
October 22, 2009
Format:Paperback
OVERALL: George's fans will certainly love having some insight into her work. However, the rest of us will do better looking at Frey's book or Ben Bova's book on writing science fiction.
CONS:
- She takes the "show, don't tell" mantra a bit too far by having VERY long excerpts. Sometimes it goes for 2-3 pages. This felt excessively long. Be brief.
- About 25-33% of the examples were from her own work. I couldn't stay awake reading her excerpts. Just too slow and long winded. She admits that her editor says that "nobody will accuse you of being fast-paced." It's true. It's S-L-O-W. So even a few paragraphs is too much. She should have used more classic examples from Tier A writers. Most of her books on Amazon hover around 3 stars - that's not good. Her highest rated book is this one!
- Her organization is confusing. She has a chapter (or two) on Character and Setting near the beginning. Then, mysteriously, she addresses the issue again at the end in a few extra chapters. Sloppy organization.
- Most of her lessons and tips were obvious and have been said before. It might have been better to write a "how to write a mystery book".
PROS:
- She rarely says anything that's wrong. The only thing I definitely disagreed with is her emphasis of going to the location. This is good, but not essential. And it's impossible (often) when you're writing Scifi. Thanks to the Net, you can do virtual tours of Mecca without going there.
Finally, I'll share my key takeaways from Write Away by Elizabeth George:
-Characters learn something from the events (and does the reader).
-Characters are interesting in their conflict, misery, unhappiness, and confusion.
-Give them flaws and let them doubt something, make them grow and change, and put them in conflict.
-The words, syntax of the characters show their education, economics, attitude, beliefs, superstitions, pathology.
-Create a core need: we strive for this and if we don't get it, we show our psychopathlogy. --Examples are the need to be competent, to do your duty to belong, for excitement, to be authentic, to be right.
-The pathlogical manoeuvre is the flip side of the core need and is what comes out when the character is under stress. Examples: delusions, obsessions, compulsions, addictions, denial, hysterical ailments, hypochndria, illness, harming the self, harming others, phobias.
-What's the characters sexual history? What's his attitude toward it?
-What's the characters past?
-What do the characters want? In each scene and in the book?
-Put them in a crucible: they're stuck together for some reason and can't escape from being in conflict with each other.
-We understand people who have background like ours, who live in situations like ours, we admire characters who face and prevail in tough situations that we have experienced, who examine themselves honestly and their motives, who learn from their mistakes, who meet challenges with courage. This will help us care about the character.
-Place a clue and red herring together. Mention the clue, but draw all the attention to the red herring.
7 step story line (she got this from someone else)
1.The hook
2.Plot point #1: about 25% into the book. Ongoing events change: unexpected info, new facts, new character, personal discovering. Story pivots.
3.Midpoint: Increase the drama'someone arrives, finds threat, divorce, natural disaster.
4.Plot Point #2: nothing new is added, but tension reaches its apex.
5.Narrative Climax: The protagonist DECIDES. Wife decides to leave husband, detective decides on how to get the killer, the victim decides to get revenge. The decision involves risk: mental, physical, emotional, psychological.
6.Dramatic Climax: The big fight, the courtroom verdict. The emotional release. Reader is looking for satisfaction.
7.Denouement: Tie up loose ends.
Hero's Journey (she got this from someone else, who got it from Joseph Campbell)
1.Call to adventure.
2.Refuse the call.
3.Mentor prepares the hero.
4.Crosses the first threshold and embarks on the adventure.
5.Hero understands the nature and identity of his enemies and friends.
6.Approach the inmost cave: a place of fear and danger.
7.Endures the ordeal.
8.Receives reward.
9.The road back.
10.Resurrection of the evil to test hero one more time.
11.Returns with the elixir.
Create a Character prompt sheet, with things like:
Physical peculiarities:
Sexuality:
Best friend:
Enemies:
Family:
Core need:
Pathological manoeuvre:
Ambition in life:
Summary of George's steps:
1.The Idea and primary event
2.List of characters
3.Research
4.Create characters
5.Create settings
6.Step outline
7.Plot ouline
8.Write rough draft
9.Fast reading
10.Editorial letter to self
11.2nd draft
12.Cold reader
13.Third draft
14.Submit
CONCLUSION: As you can see, I got some things out of the book, but I didn't feel anything was new or original. The examples were too long and too often from her work, which I didn't find entertaining. I gave it 3 stars because it's so-so overall. I recommend another book, like James Frey, which she quotes from a few times.
CONS:
- She takes the "show, don't tell" mantra a bit too far by having VERY long excerpts. Sometimes it goes for 2-3 pages. This felt excessively long. Be brief.
- About 25-33% of the examples were from her own work. I couldn't stay awake reading her excerpts. Just too slow and long winded. She admits that her editor says that "nobody will accuse you of being fast-paced." It's true. It's S-L-O-W. So even a few paragraphs is too much. She should have used more classic examples from Tier A writers. Most of her books on Amazon hover around 3 stars - that's not good. Her highest rated book is this one!
- Her organization is confusing. She has a chapter (or two) on Character and Setting near the beginning. Then, mysteriously, she addresses the issue again at the end in a few extra chapters. Sloppy organization.
- Most of her lessons and tips were obvious and have been said before. It might have been better to write a "how to write a mystery book".
PROS:
- She rarely says anything that's wrong. The only thing I definitely disagreed with is her emphasis of going to the location. This is good, but not essential. And it's impossible (often) when you're writing Scifi. Thanks to the Net, you can do virtual tours of Mecca without going there.
Finally, I'll share my key takeaways from Write Away by Elizabeth George:
-Characters learn something from the events (and does the reader).
-Characters are interesting in their conflict, misery, unhappiness, and confusion.
-Give them flaws and let them doubt something, make them grow and change, and put them in conflict.
-The words, syntax of the characters show their education, economics, attitude, beliefs, superstitions, pathology.
-Create a core need: we strive for this and if we don't get it, we show our psychopathlogy. --Examples are the need to be competent, to do your duty to belong, for excitement, to be authentic, to be right.
-The pathlogical manoeuvre is the flip side of the core need and is what comes out when the character is under stress. Examples: delusions, obsessions, compulsions, addictions, denial, hysterical ailments, hypochndria, illness, harming the self, harming others, phobias.
-What's the characters sexual history? What's his attitude toward it?
-What's the characters past?
-What do the characters want? In each scene and in the book?
-Put them in a crucible: they're stuck together for some reason and can't escape from being in conflict with each other.
-We understand people who have background like ours, who live in situations like ours, we admire characters who face and prevail in tough situations that we have experienced, who examine themselves honestly and their motives, who learn from their mistakes, who meet challenges with courage. This will help us care about the character.
-Place a clue and red herring together. Mention the clue, but draw all the attention to the red herring.
7 step story line (she got this from someone else)
1.The hook
2.Plot point #1: about 25% into the book. Ongoing events change: unexpected info, new facts, new character, personal discovering. Story pivots.
3.Midpoint: Increase the drama'someone arrives, finds threat, divorce, natural disaster.
4.Plot Point #2: nothing new is added, but tension reaches its apex.
5.Narrative Climax: The protagonist DECIDES. Wife decides to leave husband, detective decides on how to get the killer, the victim decides to get revenge. The decision involves risk: mental, physical, emotional, psychological.
6.Dramatic Climax: The big fight, the courtroom verdict. The emotional release. Reader is looking for satisfaction.
7.Denouement: Tie up loose ends.
Hero's Journey (she got this from someone else, who got it from Joseph Campbell)
1.Call to adventure.
2.Refuse the call.
3.Mentor prepares the hero.
4.Crosses the first threshold and embarks on the adventure.
5.Hero understands the nature and identity of his enemies and friends.
6.Approach the inmost cave: a place of fear and danger.
7.Endures the ordeal.
8.Receives reward.
9.The road back.
10.Resurrection of the evil to test hero one more time.
11.Returns with the elixir.
Create a Character prompt sheet, with things like:
Physical peculiarities:
Sexuality:
Best friend:
Enemies:
Family:
Core need:
Pathological manoeuvre:
Ambition in life:
Summary of George's steps:
1.The Idea and primary event
2.List of characters
3.Research
4.Create characters
5.Create settings
6.Step outline
7.Plot ouline
8.Write rough draft
9.Fast reading
10.Editorial letter to self
11.2nd draft
12.Cold reader
13.Third draft
14.Submit
CONCLUSION: As you can see, I got some things out of the book, but I didn't feel anything was new or original. The examples were too long and too often from her work, which I didn't find entertaining. I gave it 3 stars because it's so-so overall. I recommend another book, like James Frey, which she quotes from a few times.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Informative and thorough, with a little humor
When I picked up Write Away, I had never heard of the author, Elizabeth George. All I knew of her book is that several authors have said this is a "must read. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Evelyn Puerto
5.0 out of 5 stars
Book is Thorough and Comprehensive
Not much to say, as a book, it covers all the bases. I'd recommend adding it to your writing library.
Published 3 months ago by No pen name
5.0 out of 5 stars
A good teacher
This book is very helpfull if you want to learn how to write a novel. Elizabeth George give very good advices and methodes to create our own novel, it is very interesting. Read more
Published 14 months ago by RAEL.ORG
5.0 out of 5 stars
my top choice out of 15 books on the craft of writing!
This book is well worth the time, I have recently accumulated over fifteen books on the craft of writing and this is the best one! Read more
Published 16 months ago by Kelli Sefton
5.0 out of 5 stars
Write Away
This book will be kept on my desk for reference and may become dog-eared. The pre-writing development and process "feel" right. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Christy Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars
Instructional and thorough
The author has a detailed plan of action when it comes to writing fiction. She says that anyone can be a writer; after reading half of this book, I have to disagree. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Linda L. Troutman
5.0 out of 5 stars
write away
I found this book very informative and organized. She gave many examples to illustrate her instructions which really helped to understand her point. Read more
Published on May 23, 2011 by Roxee
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Basic Teach-Yourself Book on the Novel-Writing Craft
Elizabeth George is the "New York Times" bestselling author of sixteen mystery novels, with her latest, "This Body of Death," published in 2010. Read more
Published on April 11, 2010 by C. J. Singh
5.0 out of 5 stars
Write Away by Elizabeth George
I have read many books about writing fiction and they have been good, but this is way beyond good. She doesn't give you the same answer I have heard parroted both in books as well... Read more
Published on May 22, 2009 by Mare
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elizabeth George pulls off the perfect balance of practical and...
I should probably start by admitting that I have an entire bookshelf full of writing books. Some are inspiring, some offer step-by-step guidelines, and some, sadly, seem like... Read more
Published on February 6, 2009 by Katrina B.
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