Customer Reviews

The Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Writer

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

 

 

This book is truly a must read book. Between the covers, it is packed with the guidelines for teenagers like me to understand why they write and what they write. It's not another creative writing book, this is for aspiring writers who really want o ahve a career in the literary world. Step by step plans are detailed and yet you still do have the freedom to manuver around and explore. But personally, there were some parts where re-reading had to be done as the statements were not exactly clear.

It has inspired me and helped me along with writing exercises known as "Writer's Notebook" and encourage me to develop my writing passion.

When I first started to read this book, I thought it was going to be another boring book on how to write a story. The stuff about "what is a paragraph" scared me a bit, too. But as I got farther and farther into the book, I realized what great content this book had! I didn't expect the author to go into such detail on how to submit your story, as a manuscript, to a publisher! I would defintely reccomend this book to all the potential writers out there!

This is a well-written, thorough, and completely boring book. Obviously, if I am interested in writing and am a young adult, then I have no use for a fourth grade language arts review. There are no resources or any helpful hints that I can find. I do not reccomend this book to any young adult, but any nine-year-old in need of tutoring is in luck. Put your twelve bucks toward a Kathy Henderson book instead.

I have to agree on several points with the Scholastic reviewer. This is definitely NOT the first book you want to give an aspiring young writer. It does have some good info on the publisher-author-editor relationship, and a few interesting quotes, but it has a number of serious problems.

First, the organization of it is very frustrating. Nothing proceeds logically.

Second, it's unclear what age group is targeted. In one breath the author is unsure whether her readers know what paragraphs are; in the next she's talking about hiring a lawyer.

Third, some of the recommended reading is wildly inappropriate for most kids. It ranges from strange New Age stuff to out-of-date science to Huysmans.

Fourth, the book is primarily aimed at British kids, and Grant's attempts to internationalize it fall short.

Fifth, Grant is just plain not very encouraging. If I were a young person just starting out, this book wouldn't do all that much to encourage me to explore writing further, or think of it as very potentially enjoyable.

In all, this book could be somewhat useful to a young person who's been writing for a while. But for a beginner--no, really for anybody--the book of choice is Stephen Tchudi's "The Young Writer's Handbook." Do what you have to do within the bounds of sanity and legality to get hold of THAT!

This is the best book I have seen yet that accurately describes the writing career to young adults. I would give this book freely to any teenager/young adult who expresses an intrest in writing. It has helpful writing excercises and endless tips that are necessary to know. It is concise and easy to understand. I only wish there were more books like this!

I loved this book. It is well written and full of information on how to become a professional writer.

this book is so good! it even helped me publish a book

This book really explained how to publish your work. Before I read it, I was kind of clueless, but now, I'm in the know!