by Rachel Toalson | Books
Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need, by Blake Snyder is, as you might have guessed, a book on screenwriting. But let me just tell you why screenwriting books are so very good for writers of all kinds. Screenwriters have story figured out. They have visual writing figured out. And in our day and age, if we’re going to compete with things like movies and television shows, we have to get those things figured out, too. That’s why I like to add screenwriting books to my rotation of writing books that I read.
Save the Cat is actually an older screenwriting book, but it still contains everything you need to know about how to tell a great story. I found it helpful for tightening up my brainstorm process. I even changed my brainstorm process when I read a section where Snyder talked about how he uses index cards for his brainstorming. I don’t know why the thought never occurred to me, but now I do the same. I’m a more visual person, and brainstorming exclusively on a computer has always felt a little empty to me. The last novel I brainstormed, I used index cards to write out scenes, record the emotion of those scenes and clarify the conflict, and I had a stack of 40 cards before I even knew it.
Snyder writes in a casual and humorous tone. He doesn’t use a lot of screenwriter terminology, so that made Save the Cat easy to understand and learn from.
One of the things I enjoyed about Snyder’s book was his permission to not be too wordy. I hate when books are too wordy. There are some 800-pagers I read that I think, if I were the editor, I would have cut this by about 400 pages. You don’t have to worry about that with Snyder. His book is short and sweet and full of helpful information that any writer can use to improve their craft. And he’ll urge you to be short and sweet, too, which I found refreshing.
I’ve already incorporated Snyder’s brainstorm process into my own, and it’s been working better than I expected. His suggestions on how to improve the visual nature of your writing has really helped the scenes I’m creating on the page come to life.
Not only that, but I just really enjoyed getting to know Snyder in his pages. I think he would have been a fun guy to know. Snyder died in 2009, but his books are a treasure for the writing and screenwriting world.
*The above is an affiliate link. I only recommend books I find valuable myself. I don’t even actually talk about the books I don’t find valuable, because I try to forget I wasted time on them.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
It’s taken me a while to get around to writing about this splendid picture book, but my boys have recently been requesting it (again), and I couldn’t let another month go by without sharing it with you.
If you haven’t yet picked up The Spider and the Fly, a picture book based on the cautionary tale by Mary Hewitt and illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi (who also illustrated The Spiderwick Chronicles), you are truly missing out on something extraordinary.
Not only is the poetry of the book beautiful, but the illustrations are stunning. It is probably one of the best “dark” picture books that I’ve ever read.
Here are three things I love about this book:
1. The illustrations. They are all done in black and white, which lends it a dark gothic feel. I love this. The illustrations are also beautifully detailed and wonderfully entertaining, underlining the creepy relationship between a spider and a fly the spider would like to eat.
2. The poetry is rhyming but not in a silly way. In fact, this poem is sophisticated in both its rhyme scheme and its lyricism. It will be a delight for children, parents, and kid-less adults to read this one aloud.
3. It’s a book with a moral. This is the classic tale of the spider and the fly, with a caution at the end:
“And now, dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne’er give heed;
Unto an evil counselor,
Close heart and ear and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale
Of the Spider and the Fly.”
If you’re looking for a fun and entertaining book to read with children, look no further than this one. And if you don’t really fancy reading with children, pick it up anyway. Its beautiful poetry is enough to warrant at least a read or two.
The book mentioned above has an affiliate link attached to it, which means I’ll get a small kick-back if you click on it and purchase. But I only recommend books I enjoy reading myself. Actually, I don’t even talk about books I didn’t enjoy. I’d rather forget I ever wasted time reading them. (But if you’re curious whether I’ve read something and what I thought about it, don’t hesitate to ask.)
by Rachel Toalson | Books
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of thinking positively as a writer. This book is a FANTASTIC resource for learning how to do that. If you’re like me, and you have a natural bend toward negativity (which I suspect many writers have), I would recommend that the next book you read be this one. Nothing is more important for getting our brains into a healthy place.
Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm and Confidence, by Rick Hanson, is a book about training your mind to see good. But not just see it—absorb it. Make it a part of us. Rewire the brain to have a positivity bias.
Hanson is a neuropsychologist, which is a fascinating term, isn’t it? It just means that he’s a psychologist who uses brain science and not just psychology to help heal his patients. In Hardwiring Happiness, Hanson highlights the most recent brain science and then builds practices around how to use that brain science to rewire the brain so that we can eliminate things like helplessness, alarm, anxiety, fear, immobilization, disappointment, frustration, failure, boredom, apathy, drivenness, shame and worthlessness, resentment, and feeling neglected, misunderstood and left out, among many other negative biases. Hanson walks readers through how to change their brain using the everyday moments and his “taking in the good” practice, which is his term for sort of meditating on every moment, noticing it, taking it in, sinking into it, and then linking negative experiences with a positive one.
What I liked most about the book was the practices Hanson provided at the end of it. He lays out all the exercises you can use to eliminate your brain’s natural capacity for holding onto negative material. He said the negative material our brains hold onto falls into three different categories: avoiding harms, approaching rewards and attaching to others. I found those categories to be incredibly accurate and helpful for understanding my own biases. Hanson then created effective practices around each of those categories—with a challenge to eventually being practicing them every day.
I liked these practices so much that I actually recorded them on my phone’s voice recorder so that, when I’m feeling overwhelmed or I’m dealing with disappointment or I’m feeling ignored or left out or worthless, I can take a few minutes—which is really all these practices demand—and take in the good.
Where Hanson goes farther than other books I’ve seen like this is in his HEAL process. HEAL is an acronym for:
Have a positive experience.
Enrich it.
Absorb it.
Link positive and negative material.
I’ve read other books that detail the first three steps, but if you’re not linking positive and negative material and essentially rewriting the negative, then positivity will not last. The next time you encounter a trigger from your past, you’ll be right back in that place of shame or abandonment or failure. Hardwiring Happiness is a great resource for restructuring our brains to become and remain more positive—which is important for every aspect of our lives.
*The above is an affiliate link. I only recommend books I find valuable myself. I don’t even actually talk about the books I don’t find valuable, because I try to forget I wasted time on them.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
I recently read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon (adult literary), because I had read about it in a writing craft book, and I’m always a sucker for book recommendations. I was so glad I picked this one up.
The Curious Incident is told from the point of view of an autistic narrator, which made it fascinating to begin with. The narrator is trying to solve a mystery of who killed his neighbor’s dog. The book had a fantastic voice, a very engaging narrator, and an interesting story line that will hook readers immediately.
Here are the three things I liked most about it:
- The voice. All the way through the story, the voice was incredibly compelling. It was amazing how Haddon sustained it for so long (though it wasn’t a long book).
- The understated emotion. Because the narrator is autistic, he doesn’t feel much emotion, but because he is incredibly observant, you get to download all those cues yourself.
- The last lines. They are some of the greatest last lines that I’ve ever read in literature. Unfortunately, I can’t share them with you, because it would give too much away. So you’ll just have to read it for yourself.
Here’s an example of the really great voice and personality in this book:
“Father came home at 5:48 p.m. I heard him come through the front door. Then he came into the living room. He was wearing a lime green and sky blue check shirt and there was a double knot on one of his shoes but not on the other. He was carrying an old advert for Fussell’s Milk Powder which was made of metal and painted with blue and white enamel and covered with little circles of rust which were like bullet holes, but he didn’t explain why he was carrying this.
He said, ‘Howdy pardner,’ which is a joke he does.
And I said, ‘Hello.’
I carried on watching the video and Father went into the kitchen.”
The Curious Incident was, overall, a fantastic read. You won’t be disappointed.
by Rachel Toalson | Books
I hate writing promotional copy. I hate talking about myself. I hate staring at a blank page on my web site and wondering what I should say. So when I saw the book, Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content, by Ann Handley, I decided this was probably one I needed to pick up. And I was right.
Ann Handley is the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs, a training and education company. Everybody Writes is a book about how to effectively write copy for all the marketing material you have. Handley offers tips and hacks for web site content, blog posts, home pages, landing pages, email marketing, blurbs and more.
The book begins with general rules for copy writing, which I already knew, because they’re very close to journalism rules, and, in fact, she discusses how copywriting is just another form of journalism. I intuitively knew that, but it was helpful to make the connection, because I now have permission to approach my copywriting with the unbiased pen of a journalist—something I’ve been trained for. That benefit alone made this book worth it. But there’s so much more in it. Handley offers guidelines for different types of writing that I found helpful to remember when I’m crafting a pitch for a magazine or writing a query letter or brainstorming a blog post. In fact, now I think I have to overhaul everything. Which is a little overwhelming, but, in the long run, for the best.
Handley writes in a very conversational style that was, at times, even humorous. For a book on copywriting, I found this remarkable. She knows her stuff.
One of my favorite parts of the book was a section on annual reports and how you can make them interesting. Handley used examples from the actual annual reports of Mailchimp and Warby Parker, a one-for-one eyeglasses company, and how these two companies crafted annual reports that actually made people want to read them. I found it incredibly helpful, because it gives us permission, as business owners and marketers, to think outside the box when it comes to things like annual numbers and reporting on what our company has accomplished in the last year.
Handley also made another connection that I’d never really thought about: The Ugly First Draft. I allow myself an Ugly First Draft for my fiction writing, but, for some reason, I’d never allowed for my promotional writing. Well, now I will, because she mentioned it, and I had a Eureka moment. Of course you should have an Ugly First Draft. Promotional writing is like every other writing—get the words out, then make it pretty in the revising.
I have about 6,000 words of notes that I took during the reading of this book, which I’m sure I’ll be referring to every time I have to write promotional copy. It’s an invaluable resource to have on any writer’s shelf—especially mine.
The book mentioned above has an affiliate link attached to it, which means I’ll get a small kick-back if you click on it and purchase. But I only recommend books I enjoy reading myself. Actually, I don’t even talk about books I didn’t enjoy. I’d rather forget I ever wasted time reading them (but if you’re curious whether I’ve read something or what I thought about it and it’s not mentioned here, feel free to ask).
by Rachel Toalson | Books
I recently read Fuzzy Mud, by Louis Sachar, to my 4-year-old twins—not because I thought they’d understand it completely but because it’s good to read aloud to kids whether or not they can understand the stories. Reading longer books to younger children improves their concentration, encourages a greater grasp on language, and promotes a love of literature. I’m all about those things, so I picked this one up mostly because I wanted to read it myself, and sometimes the best way to read books is to read them aloud to children.
It was slightly creepy, but not in a way that frightened my boys. It was actually just the right amount of creepiness to raise the tension high enough to keep them involved and invested in the story.
Fuzzy Mud is a middle grade science fiction book that contains all of what I love about Louis Sachar: some humor, an engaging premise, and lovable characters.
Here are three things I enjoyed about this story:
- The scientific elements. There was a lot of imagination that went into the development of this story, which was based on this premise: some renegade cells in a new biofuel begin to take over the world. Not really, but almost.
- The transcripts of Senate hearings. Because the premise is a bit controversial, Sachar brings in some Senate hearings that take place between local Senators and the creator of the biofuel, which gives the book a very realistic feel.
- The characters were simple but compelling. You didn’t hear a lot about their backstories and what makes them tick, but you heard enough.
All in all, Fuzzy Mud was a fantastic read for young children, regardless of whether or not they understood every word.
The book mentioned above has an affiliate link attached to it, which means I’ll get a small kick-back if you click on it and purchase. But I only recommend books I enjoy reading myself. Actually, I don’t even talk about books I didn’t enjoy. I’d rather forget I ever wasted time reading them. (But if you’re curious whether I’ve read something and what I thought about it, don’t hesitate to ask.)
