I do recommend those two, definitely. 10 Steps To Making Memorable Characters didn't necessarily tell me anything new, but it definitely got me more organised and involved in creating characters. Normally I sort of let them create themselves every which way -- not that this suppressed that, but it did help figure out a lot of background stuff I wouldn't have really thought about.
And Ursula Le Guin -- I have endless love for her anyway, but I do love Steering the Craft most of all the books on writing I've been reading. The exercises I've done so far were: writing something intended to be read aloud, with repetition and alliteration and rhythms (but not a rhyme scheme), writing something entirely without punctuation, writing a short scene in which the sentences couldn't be longer than seven words and couldn't be fragments, and writing a scene in one paragraph without ever stopping.
Incidentally, I actually shared my responses to that on my personal journal -- if you're interested at all (ha, ha, lookit my ego) I can make the post public for a while or add you so you can take a look. :D Not that they're that good, but seeing what I did with the exercises might be a better advertisement that me raving about the book. >>
I am really, really pleased that one of my review posts was actually interesting/helpful to someone.
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dancing_serpent
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Date: 2008-01-04 05:00 pm (UTC)And Ursula Le Guin -- I have endless love for her anyway, but I do love Steering the Craft most of all the books on writing I've been reading. The exercises I've done so far were: writing something intended to be read aloud, with repetition and alliteration and rhythms (but not a rhyme scheme), writing something entirely without punctuation, writing a short scene in which the sentences couldn't be longer than seven words and couldn't be fragments, and writing a scene in one paragraph without ever stopping.
Incidentally, I actually shared my responses to that on my personal journal -- if you're interested at all (ha, ha, lookit my ego) I can make the post public for a while or add you so you can take a look. :D Not that they're that good, but seeing what I did with the exercises might be a better advertisement that me raving about the book. >>
I am really, really pleased that one of my review posts was actually interesting/helpful to someone.