So You Want to Write (2nd Edition): How to Master the Craft of Writing Fiction and Memoir

I really appreciated the exercises in this book. It also has a very concrete analysis of what it takes to write good fiction. The only drawback of this book, for someone who is not interested in writing a memoir, is that various parts of the book pertain to memoirs (of course, this is in the title), so I found myself skipping those parts.

I don't generally read this kind of book because I've read most of them and they tend to give good, but general and somewhat idealistic advice. However this one has a helpful section on plot- a chapter laced with examples from their slush pile and workshop experiences. I also enjoyed the 10 Most Destructive Things Writers Can Do....

Marge Piercy and Ira Wood have been around the block plenty of times, stubbornly making their living out of a love of writing. And a tough living it is, too. While bestselling authors can make megabucks, most writers earn their bread the hard way: "$124,000, and it took four years of my life." You do the math. Nevertheless, Wood and Piercy do not discourage the artist; instead they nurture with motherly advice on agents, and bittersweet tales, such as the story of "Kitchen Man", Wood's exemplary novel (excerpted in the appendix) that goes from campus favorite to out-of-print remainder in that too-short life cycle for so many excellent books.There exercises, some to polish dialog, and my favorite exercise, a sort of checklist to get to know your characters that reads like a questionnaire for a dating service! There are anecdotes about other famous writing coaches, such as the story of a short novel that goes from coach Maxine Kumin to Joyce Carol Oates. Kunin advises the author that the work is going to be a short novella. "No, it's a short novel of 180 pages" declares Oates. When the manuscript was finished, Joyce then tells the author "Treat this as if you are going to die. And this is what you will leave behind." Pithy. Meaningful. This is good writing coaching. This is a warm, wonderful book especially for the memoir or fiction writer.

I wont own this book until about 5 minutes after I write this Review. However, I have known of Marge Piercy for about 21 years--actually I bought my first book of hers Vida totally ignorant, but desperate and unemployed and really needing a book to escape into and buying Vida on a remaindered book table outside of a community college where I was then turned down for a temporary clerical job, a college I now teach writing at. I didn't know that Marge was someone from home, someone who came out of the same struggles and times that I came out, that over the years, long before I met her, I would keep running into people not just reading her work, but her doing her deeds had done good things for, important people in my life who would reel the clock back until I realized how many rooms and demonstrations I had shared with Marge. Later, as I became a writer, I would run into writers who became my friends who kept telling me the good things, the quiet things, the unacknowledged things she had done for them, particularly minority writers made to feel out of place at writing colonies, writers organizations, working class originated people feeling out of place in stuffy phony poetry circles. Marge Piercy is a writer, Marge Piercy is a fighter. This is going to be direct talk, from reality, as well as from the heart, direct talk for a master of poetry, three or four genres of fiction. I just know from knowing Marge and Ira and their work, that this is the kind of book I will probably be teaching in my classes, and living in my writing.BUY THIS BOOK

For writers who are serious about getting published, this book is extremely helpful. It covers everything from the emotional side of being a writer, to the nuts and bolts of submitting a manuscript. Primarily geared towards novelists and writers of memoir, it's also helpful to anyone who takes the art and craft of writing seriously and wants to learn from two successful writers who generously and warmly share their secrets with others.