How to Write: Advice and Reflections

by Richard Rhodes

Book Overview

Uniquely fusing practical advice on writing with his own insights into the craft, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes constructs beautiful prose about the issues would-be writers are most afraid to articulate:

How do I dare write? Where do I begin? What do I do with this story I have to tell that fills and breaks my heart?

Rich with personal vignettes about Rhode's sources of inspiration, How to Write is also a memoir of one of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688149480
• ISBN13: 9780688149482
• Release Date: October 1996
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.9"
• Age Range: 2 years and up

Customer Reviews

Extraordinary Insight

I can understand the point of view for the more negative reviews citing arrogance and lack of usefulness with this text. At first reading, the text may seem haughty, incomprehensible, and boring to those looking for a step-by-step, paint-by-the-numbers method of writing the next Great American Novel. However, the most valuable and rewarding aspects of this book (for those who take the time to analyze its depths) are the first hand glimpses at writing's business side and the transparent look into the brain of an outstanding author. This isn't Stephen King writing about how he makes best-selling novels. It's a Pulizer prize-winning author carefully and succinctly laying out his methods, insights, achievements, failures, and overall philosophy for writing. Although some of the mechanics of writing are presented, it's the deeper components of the ART of writing, such as word choice and placement, connotative mental imagery, descriptive melding of facts, etc. that make this book truly fascinating to me. Although it comes across in sections as "look at how good I am," ask yourself if you could have re-written those passages to make them sound less arrogant and still get the complete message across. It would be like trying to describe how to climb Everest without ever accomplishing and acknowledging the feat.

Self-Referential in the Very Best Sense

Look, when we read a book; how it dovetails with our immediate needs and interests, all very much affects how we rate it. With that caveat, I will say that those who describe Rhodes' as self-advertizing, by my lights, get it all wrong. In this wonderfully helpful book, which covers not only writing but the pain of publishing too, Rhodes uses his own vast experiences to help others, not to pat himself on the back. Anyone who reads it that way, I believe, is mistaken (or in the wrong mood). I found this book up there with Anne Lamott, Betsy Lerner and on the fact of publisher's mentality towards writers, utterly unique, right on target. He also gives a ton of useful tips from one who had ups and downs as a writer before winning the Pulizer prize. I prize this book. It crossed my life and came to inform my writing self at the right time, and is helpful as few other self-help books for writers are. Again, all reviews are subjective but those who think he's not delivering the goods, or not our to really help other writers have got it backwards. It takes courage and grit to go out on a limb, using oneself to let others see clearly. Do buy this if you are : a writer having any sort of problem. Richard Rhodes Knows.

An open window on a brilliant mind

Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Rhodes has accomplished a rare feat with his book on the art and science of writing. Instead of unemotionally instructing the reader on "how to write," he has opened himself up and revealed the doubts, challenges, inspirations, and disappointments that drive people to express themselves in writing. Throughout the book, he uses his own experiences as examples, often with candor that borders on confession. The result is an amazingly effective revelation on the multi-faceted processes involved in effectively expressing one's thoughts and ideas in an organized written manner. For a professional scientist (chemist) that also loves to write beyond his field of expertise, this book has proved to be an invaluable gift. Richard Rhodes is a man of immense intellect, knowledge, and patience, three ingredients that have created a piece of art from what easily could have become a boring "how to" manual.

Rhodes tells it like it is - writing is hard work!

I found this book to be an excellent insider's account of what it takes to make it as a writer today. Rhodes shares many of his successes and failures along the way, and is very honest about the reasons for all of them. He also shares his life with the reader in a way that helps you understand how complex the writer's motivations, interests and, ultimately, his humanity can be. Rhodes also offers a great deal of practical advice and insight into both the writing craft itself and the challenges a writer regularly faces - whether they be personal, financial, or otherwise. His easygoing, subtle style pulls you effortlessly along and you eventually understand why he has the authority to write such a book in the first place. You will learn a great deal from Rhodes if your interest is personal, professional, or both.

Beautifully written book

The Pulitzer prize winning author writes exceptionally, regardless of the topic. The first two or three chapters serve as purely inspirational, on the art of writing. The latter chapters aim at more technical ideas behind the work of writing.