How To Write: How To Start, and What To Write If You Don’t Have Any Ideas, by Louise Tondeur

[Note:  This book was provided by Reedsy Discovery for the purpose of review.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.]

As a writer, I must admit that writer’s block is seldom something that troubles me.  Usually I have more than enough that I want to write about.  Nevertheless, knowing a great many writers as I do, it is fairly common for people who write to struggle with knowing how to begin and with turning off that self-critical voice that wants to edit and improve before one gets started creating.  While this book is certainly a short one, it offers a great deal of help and suggestions in giving the reader encouragement in how to come up with material for writing.  The author consistently encourages writers to notebook, jotting down locations and jobs, feelings as well as discreet samples of dialogue from conversations and ideas for relationships that can help someone flesh out characters.  To be sure, the author is aware that some of these activities can be risky (which is why she points out over and over again for the reader to be safe when going out for research purposes).  That said, this book certainly gives reader a lot of help in coming up with a critical mass of material that allows a story to be well-written.

In terms of its contents, this particular book is a short one.  After an introduction the author encourages writers who are presumably struggling with writer’s block to loosen up to allow one’s creativity to flow.  Various aspects of loosening up, with regards to storytelling, writing in a personal notebook, exploring various ideas and places for inspiration, some extra suggestions, and designing one’s own rhythm follow.  After this the author discusses various aspects of rhythm that are important for writers, including the importance of storytelling and writing consistently.  After this comes some suggestions on how the reader can add a sense of place to one’s writing through the exploration of various places and observation as well as (polite) listening in.  The author urges writers to read voraciously in order to improve their knowledge of useful and beautiful word pictures as well as a firm understanding of both character and dialogue.  The advice seems directed most of all at those writers who wish to write prose fiction and possibly also drama, and provide enough techniques and suggestions that everyone should be able to find something that will encourage creative writing.

Having not read any of the author’s other material yet, it is hard to place this particular book in context.  That said, the author has written books on how to think like a writer, how to set goals and manage time as a writer, how to find time to write and how to get published as a novelist, all of which suggests that this book will fit in towards the beginning of this series in helping writers to get started.  It must be admitted that the author has so far done a good job at providing a set of guides to help writers out and will likely increase these works along all steps of the process, including editing and perhaps even marketing one’s books.  If those guides are as full of worthwhile suggestions and tips and advice, they are likely well worth reading too for aspiring writers who are looking to get started in writing fiction.  That said, even writers who are a bit more polished and experienced but who are having a rough patch can find some suggestions here to overcome the writer’s block and maintain the habits that allow one to be a successful and productive writer.