Customer Reviews

Zen In The Art Of Writing

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This superb collection of essays by Ray Bradbury gives you an unfettered view of his writing technique. Equal parts brainstorming/word association and playing "What If," Bradbury's method of getting words on the page is deceptively simple. Fortunately, Bradbury also goes into detail about how to stock your supply cupboard with people and images and emotions so when the time comes to use them (or they come out to be used), you'll have them at hand. While the book is more geared to the art of short story writing, the overarching theme of writing with gusto works for novelists as well.

Bradbury admits to using the reference to Eastern philosophy as a hook to get readers (those accepting of it as well as those indignant at the notion, yet curious enough to find out what he's talking about). Ultimately, Bradbury doesn't advocate switching from Western to Eastern thought, nor are koans sprinkled throughout the book, but he does address coming to a point where you can work without laboring and achieving a state where your words flow from you and through you effortlessly. In this way of becoming one with the universes of your creation, Bradbury is certainly a Master.

The one area where the book falls short, though, is in handling the revision and editing of your work. It's all well and good to talk of writing with verve and gusto (and it is well and it is good to do so), but Bradbury doesn't explain how to look at it after the fact objectively and with a critical eye. Granted, this isn't a how-to primer, but the enthusiasm of writing the story can be all too easily quashed by rejection notices if what is written well isn't well-written.

Nevertheless, Bradbury's message is inspirational, and if his method has worked for him for 50+ years there's no doubt it can be a successful technique. Even if you come away from the this book without being prepared to follow in his footsteps, you will still be inspired to be passionate about your work.

Ray Bradbury's "Zen in the Art of Writing" was first released in 1990 and his views on the psychology, philosophy and purpose of writing are still relevant, captivating and enlightening. Much like Madeleine L'Engle's book "Walking on Water," highlighting the best parts is an exercise in futility as the aspiring writer would have to dip the entire book in yellow ink. Treasures wait on every page.

It is interesting to read Bradbury's book hand-in-hand with Stephen King's "On Writing." Both books appeal to the intuitive writer as contrasted with the methodical writer, both author's love their craft and their audience, and both books are refreshingly honest. However, as King is a garrulous, yet beloved Dutch uncle, Bradbury is the writer's Delphic oracle.

If the writer-[beginner] is not inspired to write after reading this short, but valuable book, maybe he had best seek another line of work.

This is an excellent piece from an excellent writer. For any would-be writer, this is an exceptional guide that will teach the basics of the creative writing process. Bradbury emphasizing writing by a method of free-association. He discourages writing that conforms to popular beliefs of society. He says that writing to please others is a great fault of many authors. One should write about his own interests and hates, this will strike passion in writing, which is a key ingrediant to success in the field. He explains that excellent writing ideas spring from the subconscious mind, or muse as Bradbury puts it. One must learn how to find his muse, feed his muse, and keep his muse...To effectively capture Bradbury's powerful message, one should read this piece of excellence him/herself.

Having taught writing for twenty years, publishing four novels along the way, I regard this as the bible on the craft of writing. Bradbury's advice to have fun and let one's fingers play across the keyboard, letting enthusiasm and a love of words govern the composing process, cuts through the the tedious, mind-numbing literary algorithms of writing seminars and classes.

I suppose it's legitimate to discuss aspects of writing such as characterization, pacing, plot arc, and backstory ... if one is a lit major. There's a time and a place for everything saith the Book of Ecclesiastes, but I'm not at all convinced that the classroom teaches one to write well. I have never heard a lecture on narrative technique that didn't help me catch up on sleep. Worse yet, writing seminars usually pair you with a peer critic who knows less than you do, causing you to revise a decent piece of writing to satisfy Muffy from Vassar. Like Stephen King said in ON WRITING, if you want to be a writer, "read a lot and write a lot." To which I say, "Amen and amen."

No one can really teach anyone else how to write, and that's what makes this book such a refreshing change from the how-to books in the writing section at B&N. Bradbury wants you to love the craft, advising that whatever is good and possible in writing will flow from the springs of passion and the desire to create. Aspiring writers sit down with much angst, trying to juggle rules of composition in their minds as they begin a story. Once a story is in progress, there is constant self-editing and critiquing instead of writing the story. Bradbury's dictum is to unfocus, as it were (hence the "zen"), and let ideas slam the page "like a lightning bolt." Find a character, he says, and "shoot him off." Yes, all writers must then do the dirty work of going back to edit and revise, but that's for later. Bradbury tells us that he wrote the first draft of FAHRENHEIT 451 in seven days because he was motivated. Any such confession of a writer today in an anal-retentive literary marketplace would be regarded as lunacy and the remark of a novice not destined for publication.

The book is filled with other wonderful anecdotes about how the author began his stories and fed the muse, and each one is inspirational and worth far more than lectures that leave one feeling as if writing is an arcane exercise for people who eat caviar with literary agents. ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING is about real people with a real desire to communicate their emotions in a vital, honest, and original manner.

As the cover blurb says, writing "is a celebration, not a chore." Buy this book!

As a rule I find books that profess to "explain" the writing/creative process to be useless at best and numbing at worst. Bradbury, however, isn't interested in writing a "how-to" book. This is because he rightly considers the creative process to be impossible to neatly sum up or explain.

Still, this book doesn't mystify writing either. Bradbury reminds the reader/writer that the creative process is highly individual and that the best source that we have when we write is ourself: our memories, our experiences and our imagination, which allows us to take the stuff inside us and transform it into something fresh and new. His discussions of how he got the ideas for some of his stories (particularly fascinating to me because I had read all of them) are gems, offering insights that are fascinating in their own right and instructive to those examining their own methods of writing.

As a playwright, this book was an inspiration to me when I first read it several years ago, and it continues to be to this day. This is possibly the only book on writing that I would recommend to anyone who is a writer who thinks he/she might want to be one.

A modest collection of essays and book introductions from one of the legends of genre fiction. The topic is something Bradbury knows very well - the art of writing fiction. Essentially, he recommends creating lists, practicing copiously, and approaching one's art with gusto.

Bradbury advises would-be writers to start with a simple noun that catches their interest and write prose poems on the subject until they find their characters. That accomplished, simply allow the characters to tell their own story. It works for Bradbury, but will it work for you? Not necessarily, since this reader can't recall any other writer whose work so much resembles prose poems as Bradbury's. And keeping that in mind, one might have hoped for a variety of strategies that took into account differences in writers, in genres, in the state of the publishing industry... perhaps one hoped for too much.

Bradbury's descriptions of the origins of some of his more famous stories were fairly interesting, but to readers only marginally familiar with his work, these would probably fall pretty flat. The chapter of poetry was not impressive at all. Best part of this book - the additional paragraphs written for Fahrenheit 451. Would-be writers who are seriously trying to write like Bradbury might find it worthwhile to learn about his methodology and garner some inspiration, but fans of his fiction will find little of interest here.

Zen in the Art of Writing is my favorite kind of writing book. One that doesn't tell you how to write, but how to be a writer. Those are the best kind. A collection of essays from various sources and points in his career, Bradbury gives us many glimpses into the kind of writer he is, touching on such subjects as how to keep and feed a Muse, where ideas come from and what it takes to be a writer.

You won't find any discussions of plot, character, pacing, etc. here. Instead you'll find inspiration, ideas, passion and a little bit of who Ray Bradbury is. Just like a story.

A few excerpts:

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer.

A good idea should worry us like a dog. We should not, in turn, worry it into the grave, smother it with intellect, pontificate it into snoozing, kill it with the death of a thousand analytical slices.

At heart, all good stories are the one kind of story, the story written by an individual [writer] from [her] individual truth.

And finally...

WORK
RELAX
DON'T THINK!

Zen and the Art of Writing remains an excellent book for any artist to read. It would be almost impossible to not catch Bradbury's enthusiasm, running down the pages as it does. Again, just as in good fiction.

Written by one of the truly great writers of our time, Ray Bradbury encourages and imparts some solid tips for writing well. Definitely a must for any aspiring writer, Bradbury gives advice on how to come up with marketable story ideas and how to approach writing them. It's like being guided along by a great writer who you would never meet any other way. One of the tips he offers is that quantity leads to quality. So his advice: keep writing. He also tells us that fiction can be more truthful than nonfiction. Then he shows us how to write down meaningful words in our lives that could possibly lead to compelling stories. It's definitely worth your time to spend a few hours with a fiction master. You never know what you may take away from it. Great book!

I normally do not like such "how to" books, but this one is different because Mr. Bradbury doesn't offer a set of strict guidelines. Instead, he gives thoughtful and informative suggestions on "releasing the creative genius within you." From giving methods of writing that he has practiced over the years, such as tapping into one's muse or subconscious in order to release one's full potential and originality, to using examples from his own immense body of work, Mr. Bradbury shows how writing can be not only an enjoyable process, but a cathartic one as well. He is an impassioned individual with uncanny insight, and I highly recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in writing.

I am no fan of science fiction or eastern mysticism, so this book was a surprise.

"Just This Side of Byzantium" is a tough read because it hits so close to home. It will make you miss your childhood; it will make you want to write.