Review of Unf#ck Your Writing by Joe Biel and Faith G. Harper
Image via Microcosm Publishing
I recently got a big stack of writing craft and books through a Microcosm Publishing Kickstarter, so I’ve decided to work through several of them for reviewing on my blog.
Unf#ck Your Writing is a guide to how authors can produce their best works, but it’s not about the nitty gritty of grammar and prose so much as it is about figuring out why you want to write, what you want to say, and how you can best get your points across. It has a lot of applicability to non-fiction authors, though there are some good tips and gems buried within for fiction authors as well.
A large chunk of the book emphasizes writing clearly and without a lot of flowery language, because the latter can obscure what you’re really trying to say. This advice certainly flies in the face of those who advocate for literary fiction or literary speculative fiction, but I think there’s a line that can be trod between flowery language that obscures meaning and beautiful language that still imparts meaning.
There’s also a lot in the book that talks about narrowing down what you want to write about, getting yourself to sit down and write, and editing. As a primarily fiction writer, I found a lot of this material a little irrelevant to my writing, but I do also write some non-fiction, and there are bits sprinkled among these sections that can apply to fiction authors as well. But overall, I’d recommend this book more to non-fiction writers than fiction writers!
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