Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Fun but Brief Look at Literary Crankiness, August 22, 2005
Rogers presents an insightful and fun look at the writing mind and the factors that influence it. While it's true not all writers are cranky, his reasoning here is fun to follow even if it is a little too brief at times.
His 'Five Emergency Tools for Writing a Short Story' are interesting exercises that any writer can use to jump start a stalled writing session. A few of them seem slightly outlandish, but he does suggest modifying them in order to make them work for different writers. He gives examples of stories he created using these tools, but unfortunately, doesn't include even parts of the stories themselves as further illustration.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Words of wisdom--and a bonus, October 23, 2005
As a writer, I not only agree fully with Bruce Holland Rogers' assessment of the pitfalls of the trade, but find the essay an honest glimpse into the perils of the publishing market for those who might not understand the process of putting stories and books into print. I couldn't have said it better; I'm now working hard to embrace my inner crank.
As for Part Two: Rogers provides a quick menu of five good, succinct suggestions to prime the creative pump. I've never been one for manuals on writing, but these tools provide both sound advice, and a glimpse into methods the author himself uses to crank out three stories a month for those of us who subscribe to his service (I'd heartily advise this, incidentally: it's cheap, and this is a guy whose short-short fiction is at the very least consistently entertaining, and at its best, a marvel of imaginative thinking).
Susan O'Neill, author, Don't Mean Nothing: Short Stories of Viet Nam
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Revel In Being Cranky!, March 8, 2006
This two-part essay is a look at the nuts and bolts of being a writer. The first part examines the nature of the writer's mind and why writers always seem to be trying to outrun failures nobody else can see. The second is a list of applied tactics to produce work on a tight deadline.
Part one, "Why Writers Are Cranky," starts from the presumption that writers, as a class of people, are dissatisfied with the whole world, themselves included, and are trying to do something right. Why else, the author suggests, would we expend so much effort trying to make up for past shortcomings? We are our own worst critics, always trying to do better than last time, always trying to leave the world a little better than we found it. Professor Rogers' insights into the source of this spur are by no means definitive, but they are strong and incisive.
Part two, "Five Emergency Tools," is a selection of tactics Professor Rogers has personally used to get short stories out under the deadline. I've only used two myself so far, but if they are representative, I can tell you two things. First, they work. Second, they only work for short stories or scenes; if you are looking to write a novel, you'll need to go with a different set of tools, or else use these to build your book scene by scene.
Combining both the insightful and the handy, this article is one that will speak to writers right where they live. Keep it close at hand, because you'll read and use it more than once. And what greater compliment can you give a writer than that his article will be read and used?
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