Rating: 
Summary: Some Sound Advice
Review: This book continues to be available long after its original publication in 1934 because its advice remains pertinent for the most part. Brande tells how to make information known about the two hemispheres of the brain work for you. The advice she offers is very doable and is something that might be overlooked otherwise.
A proper balance between acting and planning is stressed. She writes, "The man of genius...acts...he creates an event." Creativity is the essence of writing. Ideas come from a fruitful mind and that is a prelude to production. Rest is a significant part of the process. As she puts it, "This freshness of response is vital to the author's talent."
The discussion of balancing work and rest relates to tapping the unconscious, which must have rest if it is to contribute. She notes that "any art must draw on this higher content of the unconscious as well as on the memories and emotions stored away there." A lot of good insight from someone who has done already contributed a significant work.
Rating: 
Summary: BUY THIS BOOK BEFORE BUYING ANY OTHER BOOK
Review: This book is what I consider as the aspiring writer's first book. Though, this book was written in the 1930s the information contained in the book is invaluable. She teaches the reader/writer how to get into the habit of writing every single day. She is honest which I appreciate and her information still applies today. She explains the whole writing process between the right and left brain. She was right when she wrote, "This book, I believe, will be unique." Furthermore, I agreed when she wrote that there was magic to the writer and that it is teachable unlike what some other writing workshop teachers may say. This was an awesome beginner's book and I totally recomend it.
Rating:
Summary: BUY THIS BOOK BEFORE BUYING ANY OTHER BOOK
Review: This book is what I consider as the aspiring writer's first book. Though, this book was written in the 1930s the information contained in the book is invaluable. She teaches the writer how to get into the habit of writing every single day. She is honest which I appreciate and her information still applies today. She explains the whole writing process between the right and left brain. She was right when she wrote, "This book, I believe, will be unique." This was an awesome beginner's book and I totally recomend it.
Rating:
Summary: The "How", not the "What" of writing
Review: This book tries to show you how to get started writing, and avoids telling you what to write. Too many "how to" books become vehicles for conveying the authors' prejudices and preferences (I remember becoming annoyed at John Gardner's overbearing allegiance to the worn Jamesian cliches like "showing not telling", for example). I don't think Dorothea Brande cares much if you are a post-modern experimentalist or a western writer, or a budding newspaper columnist; her hope is that you become a writer, at least. Your genre, style, and subject matter are nobody's business but your readers'. If you are looking for a book that will tell you whether your characters are "too shallow" or whether your plotting technique needs improvement, this is not the book (thank goodness!). If you have ever started something great and never finished, or if you want to start but can't seem to drag yourself to do it, this could be a helpful read. Check it out!
Rating:
Summary: The "How", not the "What" of writing
Review: This book tries to show you how to get started writing, and avoids telling you what to write. Too many "how to" books become vehicles for conveying the authors' prejudices and preferences (I remember becoming annoyed at John Gardner's overbearing allegiance to the worn Jamesian cliches like "showing not telling", for example). I don't think Dorothea Brande cares much if you are a post-modern experimentalist or a western writer, or a budding newspaper columnist; her hope is that you become a writer, at least. Your genre, style, and subject matter are nobody's business but your readers'. If you are looking for a book that will tell you whether your characters are "too shallow" or whether your plotting technique needs improvement, this is not the book (thank goodness!). If you have ever started something great and never finished, or if you want to start but can't seem to drag yourself to do it, this could be a helpful read. Check it out!
Rating:
Summary: What a helpful and inspiring book
Review: This book will inspire the novice writer flirting with the idea of becoming more serious. Undoubtedly, it would likewise re-inspire the seasoned professional.
Rating:
Summary: How to create then write truthful, original ideas
Review: This is an excellent classic (1934) complete with stilted sentences from a bygone era. Dorothea Brande presents a philosophy of how to create original and truthful writing. To help you she presents several exercises which you would expect from a book written in the 1980's. I have started on her recommendations -- most of which revolve around increasing your creativity and originality and applying them to your writing.
Highly recommended for anyone who writes. This book is a true gem. I'll read this book many times.
John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX
Rating:
Summary: Right brain, left brain concept not "new" after all
Review: This little gem was originally published in 1934, a fact that is absolutely amazing when you consider its content. It's about using the creative side of the brain to write, which is a concept only recently verified and documented by psychologists. Today they call it "using the right side of the brain." Gabrielle Rico (WRITING THE NATURAL WAY) wrote the first modern books for writers on the subject 30 years after Brande wrote hers.Ms. Brande, writing in 1934, speaks of "the two sides of the writer." One side is the author, with the child's innocence of eye, spontaneous, sensitive, able to respond freshly and quickly to new scenes. The other side is the artisan, adult, discriminating, temperate and just. Right brain, left brain. Brande advocates separating the two and gives a series of exercises designed to train the author side to respond willingly. By careful self-training the writer/reader will harness the unconscious and harvest its benefits. Try the exercises -- they work. If you're interested in writing or just in how creative processes work, you'll find this an amazing and useful book.
Rating:
Summary: She's Right!
Review: While written decades ago, this book presents incisive and on-point advice for those who would write. While focused predominantly on creative fiction, this guide is still very meaningful for shaping up anyone with the passion to write into a real, live author.
Rating:
Summary: She's Right!
Review: While written decades ago, this book presents incisive and on-point advice for those who would write. While focused predominantly on creative fiction, this guide is still very meaningful for shaping up anyone with the passion to write into a real, live author.
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