Customer Reviews

How to Write Fast (While Writing Well)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Despite some drawbacks, "How to write fast while writing well" is a useful tool. I first read it at my leisure, making notes in the margins as I read. After a while, I forgot about the book until I was racing to meet my weekly deadline for one of the publications I write for and was stumped, unorganized and directionless. I took a quick look at the notes I had made in the margin of the text and found help. Particularly helpful was the advice on writing well via an outline. Not that I am a novice or never graduated from the high school/college requirements of using an outline to write, but actually using an outline for a feature article -- at least at times - does speed the writing process. Other chapters are also helpful.
Considering this, I am somewhat surprised at the lack of reviews for this book. No matter -- it is a useful tool that sits on my desk that I use --particularly-- in a pinch.

What a lifesaver this book is. I'm a professional nonfiction writer, and write average of one 20,000 word article a month. After being at it for 25 years, about six months ago I hit a wall. All my processes unraveled --I was writing without plan, endlessly rewriting one sentence at a time, etc. What should take 40 hours of work started taking 80. I finally went to Amazon to look for a primer on organization that could take me back to basics and help me figure out where I went off track. I couldn't find anything that looked appropriate, and finally thought to go to into my own 4,000 volume library. I found this book, How to Write Fast While Writing Well by David Fryxell, which I now remember buying years ago when teaching a writing class. It's a perfect presentation of the tasks and tools of writing. From how to get organized to how to put it all together, it's letting me see what steps I lost from my own processes. And it's written in a style that is a pleasure to read, full of the methods of other successful writers and examples from the author's own successful writing career. Of all the books I buy, this is the first in several years I've taken the time to review. It's not the only good book I've read, of course, but this book really is helping get my life's work back on track. I'm sorry to see it's apparently out of print. It's really timeless advice.

Actually I just ordered it about sixty seconds ago. Why? Because I somehow managed to misplace the copy I bought probably fifteen years ago. This is one of the best books I've ever read about the writing process, and I have reread it a number of times through the years. So I was a bit dismayed to discover that it's nowhere to be found now that I'm ready to read it again. Perhaps a 'ghost writer' needed it more than I did. :)

Anyway, much like another reviewer said, I need it to help me over a rough patch here. When I remind myself of the steps involved, my writing goes much smoother. Can hardly wait until it gets here! :)

This is one of the best books I have ever read on structuring and organizing your writing time to maximize your output and quality, while ensuring that you have all your citations in order.

Now I have a riveting writing project and need this book ASAP! It should be available on KINDLE, and it should be in print!

Publisher, please contact the author, get him to update it and revise it a bit, and get this back out on the shelves! It would be a boon in university bookstores and high schools. It is a fantastic tool, and I'd give it 10 stars out of 5, if such a marking were available.

Do yourself a favor and check out this book at your local library. You will NOT be sorry!

This paperback edition of a 1992 guide suggests that writing more quickly requires you to be organized, solve problems early on, and cultivate your creativity. In support of the laudable -- but somewhat impractical -- goal of writing everything quickly, the author provides examples throughout his book of well-known writers and their working styles. He suggests that you need to (and can) figure out exactly what you're going to write before you sit down to write, so that you won't have to revise or edit your own work (at all!). For writers like Fryxell, who must be firing on all cylinders at once, crossing that finish line can't happen quickly enough. Although the rest of us may aspire to achieve his level of productivity, we often have to just plod along instead. Still, implementing some of his suggestions, such as becoming more self-disciplined and avoiding time wasters like over-researching and endless interviewing, might speed up even the slowest (i.e., the most meticulous and perfectionistic) of writers. At the very least, it cannot hurt us to try to set and work toward our own such standards.