Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About sabian30

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Sixty something retired banking software analyst in Little Rock, Arkansas who writes science fiction and fantasy short stories. Has four great kids (one the editor of Cannonball Fodder) and one awesome grandson.

sabian30's Reviews:

The Writers’ Holy Grail?

Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain

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I only read DIY writing books that someone recommends to me in a workshop, class, or writing group. I had this 316-page book with very small print at the bottom of the stack. As I read the early chapters on feelings and conflict, I found them informative but familiar. The writing concepts I’d read about before in other books on writing. Professor Swain has a conversational style easy to follow and understand. He makes a point, slices it into smaller parts, and explains those parts […]

What Was This Woman Smoking?

Preternatural by Margaret Wander Bonanno

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As a longtime science fiction reader, I have never read anything like this book. It’s quirky, frequently frustrating, and highly original. Plus, the concept of a science fiction writer writing about a science fiction writer is something you don’t read every day. Through the science fiction writer, Karen, we meet the aliens in the story, blobs that look like jellyfish and can only be seen by her. They talk to her, telling how they are a group mind who have existed on Earth since before […]

Excellent Ammo for Writers

The Fantasy Fiction Formula by Deborah Chester

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I don’t know if this book is so good because it’s so well written or if it came along when I needed it. I suspect the former. Ms. Chester does a great job of making the material really accessible and practical while she teaches things I hadn’t read before in the dozen DIY writing books I’ve read this year. She takes the reader’s hand as she walks us through what a scene is and should be. She also describes the resolution of the scene (called […]

You Get What You Pay For

Deepening Fiction – A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers by Sarah Stone and Ron Nyren

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I’ve probably read a dozen DIY books on writing this year and some of them have been truly exceptional, but Deeping Fiction isn’t one of them. It’s a textbook, a stogy, thick, and difficult to read textbook. I’m sure the class it’s intended for found it very informative, but the layout doesn’t work so well for self-paced reading. Each chapter deals with a familiar subject in writing. For example, the chapter on Style and Dialogue contains subchapters on The Writer’s Style, Word Choice, Tone and […]

Should Writing Be This Painful?

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

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Writing Down the Bones is another seminal work all writers are supposed to read, but I found it to be a lot like Bird by Bird where the writer is expected to really struggle to put pen to paper and expose their inner truths. Both authors describe students crying and shaking as they write. To them, writing is a calling, a torturous, deep calling, more like therapy than entertainment. Ms. Goldberg, while determined to reach that human condition of life, death, and the traumatic events […]

The Culprit Behind All the Gastrointestinal Distress

THE EMOTION THESAURUS: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

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For several years, editors and agents have recommended “showing” not “telling” and frequently use the Emotion Thesaurus as a means to show how it’s done. It’s simple really. Instead of saying “She felt surprised,” you look up surprise in the EMOTION THESAURUS and insert “Her mouth fell open and her hand flew to her chest after her fingers touched her parted lips and she gasped.” This, along with thirty other physical manifestations for surprise supposedly show the reader what the character is experiencing. Some border […]



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