Rating: 
Summary: Write More Descriptively!................
Review: ........now that I've moved past the basics of fiction-writing and I'm working on honing my skills, McClanahan's "Word Painting" has proven invaluable to teaching me how to be more descriptive in my writing. I have read and highighted this book over and over, gaining something more from it each time I re-read. I might add that the exercises in the back of each chapter have proven enormously helpful to me.McClanahan shows us the relevance of description in our writing by showing us just how it impacts a story in each of its complex facets. She presents chapters on metaphor, point of view, setting, plot and pace, "seeing" and translating what we see into words, and bringing our characters to life. I highly recommend this book to any fiction writer who has moved beyond writing basics and feels ready to further develop the skill of writing more descriptively. This book has helped me immensely!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent guide for all writers
Review: An excellent book on the intricacies of language and how to creatively and effectively paint vivid mental pictures with mere words. McClanahan's writing is in-depth, but also entertaining. It'll hold your interest all the way through, and teach you a lot along the way.
Rating:
Summary: Make Words Jump Up From The Pages And Watch Them Dance
Review: I am not an aspiring author nor any intention of becoming one. I was just searching for help to make my writing stand up from the pages, climb into the memory cavities of my friends' and colleagues' brian and remain anchored there until eternity. Rebecca McClanahan explains in a very humorous manner with many examples how to use verbs, tone, distance, setting and smell to liven up our writing. I read this book while making my daily train commute to work. I found myself bursting out in laughter several times, attracting the stares of fellow commuters as if I had added some type of hallucinogenic drugs in my coffee. On three occassions, I was so involved in the book that I missed my station stop. This book exercised some type of hypnotical powers over my descriptive starved brain.
Why did this book have such an effect on me? Is it because I am not a writer and all of this is new to me? If my high school creative writing teacher would have taught only 10 percent of the techniques as she does, I would have probably been motivated to chose a writing career.
Rating: 
Summary: Severely bloated
Review: I have read other books that have a chapter covering description that are very concise. I guess I was hoping to get more of the same from Word Painting. Instead there is so much rambleing it is hard to pick out the key points. I don't have time to read random observations and at nearly 250 pages I bet you don't either. I would much rather talk a walk in the rain.
Rating:
Summary: If you want to be a writer, read this book!!!!
Review: I learned about this book from an online writer's class, which they used as their textbook. I bought this book in hopes that it will help me to become a better writer. i hope to one day publish my works. Rebecca goes into great detail explaining the art of writing, including plots, descriptions, similies, metaphors, everything. she also includes examples and lessons to help you understand what she is trying to teach. i find this book very easy to understand and very helpful in my writing. if you want to be a writer, whether professional or amatuer you must read this book!!
Rating: 
Summary: Great Exercises
Review: I need writing exercises when experiencing a block. I liked the chapter advice, and the exercises jumpstarted me on articles I might not have written otherwise.
Rating:
Summary: Severely bloated
Review: I valliantly discovered this warmingly excellent resource for my quishy writing. I use this book everyday, and do recommend it to all writers. Just remember to use the paint in the correct amounts.
Rating:
Summary: Writer as Painter
Review: I'm so pleased with this book that it's tough to figure out where to start. The author talks about working description into our stories. She could have steered us in the direction of pages and pages of static description, yet she doesn't. She could have pushed us in the direction of tired and overused techniques (having the weather too obviously match up with what's going on in the story, for example), yet she didn't. Ms. McClanahan happily points out pitfalls, trite and overused techniques, and things to beware of at all stages. Her exercises back this up, helping us to subvert the expected. She also has a wonderful, quirky sense of humor, and uses her own advice on writing descriptively to turn what could have been a dry textbook into a beautiful and inspiring, fun-to-read book.This book has no large margins. No space-gobbling quotes. No blank space for doing the (very helpful) exercises. No overly large font or ridiculous line-spacing. None of the traditional tricks for making writing books seem larger than they actually are. This book is every bit as thick with useful information as it looks. The range of topics covered in this book in relation to description is phenomenal. I could spend pages listing out the topics covered (and how well they're dealt with!), such as metaphor, "bringing characters to life through description," point of view, setting, narrative, the senses, and on and on. Whether you write fiction, non-fiction, or poetry, this book can make your writing sing. I have a better notion of where my weaknesses as a writer lie, and how I might turn them into strengths. And that's some of the highest praise I can give to a writing book! This is truly one of my favorite writing books, and it's well worth a writer's time and money to read it.
Rating: 
Summary: I guess I'm in the minority
Review: I've bought the book as text for a writing class I'm taking and have to agree with the couple of folks who didn't like it. "Severely bloated" was a good phrase. There's just too much rambling to hold my interest. It's a shame because, like the others said, there are some very good points and exercises to the book, definitely things to be learned by reading it. But much of the important information gets lost in the midst of all the blather.
Between the book and the class, I hope to learn something, but it will be more a more painful process than necessary.
Rating:
Summary: This Sucks
Review: It is bloated. If there is any good information, its hidden very deep and i'm not patient enough to look for it. I want my money back.
|
