Imagine a library filled with every book in the world, none of them have titles on the cover and the pages are blank, but when you open one you are instantly transported to the world within the book. You get to live in the story as any character for as long as you like. And when you come out of the story, almost no time has passed in the real world.
(Source: hazelgranger)
By Emlyn Chand
Book reviews. They’re where I found my start as a writer. They’re where many of us find our starts as bloggers. They’re a great way to spread the word about good books, bad books, and everything in between.
They can also be a challenge to write.
One of the most frequent questions I get from other writers is “how can I write a book review?” Luckily, it’s not that tough once you hit your reviewing stride. It may take a while to figure out your style, but once you have it, you have it.
Allow me to offer some assistance. Here are the points I try to hit in most reviews. As you develop your own style, you may find that you prefer to stick to one major element like characterization, plotting, or literary merit—that’s perfectly fine. Find what works for you, and do it.
1. Provide a synopsis—I always start by grounding my review with a synopsis. In a way, I offer my own version of a back cover teaser. I want the reader to know what’s going on, who the key players are and what is at stake before I dive deep into analyzing the writing style or the deeper meaning.
2. Don’t give anything away—Don’t spoil the excitement for future readers by giving away the ending. How many times has a book or movie been ruined for you by a mouthy friend or sibling? If you find it’s impossible to talk about the book without divulging all of the details, come up with an alternate review style. I know one very talented blogger who knows this is a weakness of hers and instead of offering straight reviews asks very insightful interview questions. And it works for her.
3. Talk about the key characters—I’ve seen many reviews which are conducted primarily as character studies, and they are really quite effective. Give a run down of each of the key players, his or her motivations, unique quirks and importance within the story. Perhaps add in an intro to explain how the characters are connected to one another or work their descriptions into your synopsis. Another fun tactic you could employ would be doing the review from a character’s point-of-view. I have yet to write a review this way, but I have written a few book trailer scripts, and I find it quite enjoyable. Authors tend to enjoy the fresh perspective as well.
4. Analyze the deeper meaning—Why was this book important? What does it have to say about society at large? How does it reflect upon the human condition? Break it down for the readers. Most books will have at least some deeper meaning hidden within them. If the one you’re reviewing doesn’t or it’s just too difficult to find, analyze the entertainment value. Let the reader know what the book meant to you and why you decided to read it in the first place.
5. Keep your balance—Overly negative or unconditionally positive reviews suck. They just do. Why bash your fellow writer (especially when you know how time-consuming and emotionally wrought the entire process is)? Alternately, over-enthusiasm may come across as bias. “What does this reviewer have to gain?” A reader may ask. I make it a practice to only review books that I like, which means I may sometimes sway to the over zealous side of things. Providing my interpretation of the book’s synopsis definitely provides some balance. I also have created a device that I use in some of my reviews that gives a list of reasons why a reader may like a particular book and why she’ll dislike it. I’ve gotten very positive feedback on this method but find it hard to provide might not likes for contemporary authors.
6. Ask questions—I like asking questions, both in real life and in writing life. Questions are fun. They set the reader thinking. They draw people in. Maybe others have the same questions nagging in the backs of their minds but don’t realize it until you set fingers to keyboard and get those questions out there. I especially like asking questions at the end of reviews to give the reader something to think about after the fact. Hopefully, my questions haunt them enough to encourage some book sales. Search through the reviews on my site and find one without a question in it—seriously, I challenge you!
7. Provide links—Give the reader somewhere to go for more information. Link to the author’s site, the book sale page on Amazon, an interview the author did about the book, something to do with the book’s setting or theme—whatever—just link! Links also help with your SEO, which brings more traffic to your blog.
8. Introduce the author—Yes, yes, the focus of a book review is the book, but I still like to make mention of the author and his or her possible motivations and personal tie-ins. Sometimes you may want to integrate an interview into your review. Ask poignant questions and then craft the best answers into a cohesive article-style post rather than a structured Q & A. Let people know if more books are coming soon or if the author has given up society to go live in the woods and carve her stories into tree trunks. It’s interesting.
9. Bring your own unique flair—Every writer is unique. Every book is unique. Therefore, every book review is unique. Perhaps you’ll develop a format that you use for every single review, and that’s fine. Sometimes a certain book will refuse to fit into your review mold (see my write-up of Ulysseslinked below), and you’ll have to work with it. Whatever you decide to do, don’t lose your you-ness. Don’t try to write like the reviewer at the New Yorker or USA Today. I promise something about you is exciting and interesting. If you bring that into your reviews, they’ll be much stronger.
10. If you don’t like the book…Eek. More than “how do I write a book review” I am asked “what do I do when I’ve agreed to review a book but find I don’t like it?” This is very tricky indeed. I have a tendency to review only books I do enjoy to avoid being negative. But sometimes you’re stuck. Either you’ve agreed to review a book for a gig or because you have a personal connection to the author. You can’t back out.
Well, I wouldn’t recommend tearing into a book when you have a personal connection to the author. It’s just not worth it. I also don’t recommend lying in your review and risking credibility. Even reneging on your offer of a review can be very hurtful. But there are a few things you can do.
You can choose to interview the author instead—give him a chance to talk about his book’s merits without having to proclaim your adoration. You can focus on the synopsis technique outlined above—present the facts without providing your personal opinion. You can focus on the positive and fail to discuss areas that don’t work. Just don’t lie; it’s a mistake. With a little creative thinking, you’ll be able to figure out a way to provide an honest review or interview while preserving your relationship with the author. If you don’t have a personal tie to the author—no problem. Just remember point #5 above: keep your balance.
Bonus Tip: A great way to gather reviews for your book is to review others’ books. Writerly karma goes a long, long way, my friends.
anybody know of any free books online about spirituality/meditation/astral travel/obes/anything along those lines? I’ve read Bringers of the Dawn already.
I don’t know what’s currently free, but if you follow spiritscraft or track the free book (no ‘s’) tag, they post quite a few free Kindle books on paganism, magic, and related subjects when they’re available, and I’ve seen (and downloaded) several books along those lines. Though quite a few are only free for a day or two, so I check daily when I can and anything you find in there today might not still be free.
![[Image: A framed poster with a quote by L.M. Montgomery that reads, “I am simply a book drunkard.” A source in the upper left side credits thewanderingreader.com.]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdwa69mvDZ1qkq1k7o1_500.jpg)
[Image: A framed poster with a quote by L.M. Montgomery that reads, “I am simply a book drunkard.” A source in the upper left side credits thewanderingreader.com.]
(Source: nuttypop)
![[Image: Stylized poster with text reading “You can’t buy happiness but you can buy books and that’s kind of the same thing” and a stack of books on the right.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/6c6b28a361fafbacaa57b26c40b64ea3/tumblr_mf249dpzjA1r7rv29o1_500.png)
[Image: Stylized poster with text reading “You can’t buy happiness but you can buy books and that’s kind of the same thing” and a stack of books on the right.]
(Source: thespngames)
![[Image: Black background with blue text saying “Money Talks” followed by white text saying “Mine always says, ‘Wanna go to the BOOKSTORE today?’”]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/0d0c1be11e2e111036ae48df28c86410/tumblr_mf31s48lRL1rnvzfwo1_500.jpg)
[Image: Black background with blue text saying “Money Talks” followed by white text saying “Mine always says, ‘Wanna go to the BOOKSTORE today?’”]
(Source: pinterest.com)
The Top 10 Best Opening Lines Of Novels
1. Cat’s Eye, Margaret Atwood, 1998
“Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space.”
2. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, 1953
“It was a pleasure to burn.”
3. Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell, 1936
“Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.”
4. The Gunslinger, Stephen King, 1982
“The man in Black fled across the Desert, and the Gunslinger followed.”
5. The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien, 1937
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
6. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
“Lolita. Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.”
7. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides, 2002
“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.”
8. Peter and Wendy, J. M. Barrie, 1911
“All children, except one, grow up.”
9. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen, 1813
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
10. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, 1969
“All this happened, more or less.”by Meredith Borders via LitReactor
- Wilde would whisper flowery sweet nothings in your ear during foreplay but then have his very dirty way with you
- Fitzgerald would spend like an hour bragging about how good he was and then come much too soon
- Shakespeare would make up positions on the spot but they’d be awesome
- Doyle would please you once and then complain when you kept asking him to do the same thing over and over again
- Hemingway would explain in no uncertain terms exactly what he was going to do, and do exactly one very simple act, but goddamn if it wasn’t the best time you’ve had in years anyways
- Joyce would take FOREVER but eventually satisfy you
- Rand would make you do all the work yourself
- Poe would cry
If Hemingway’s the best you’re had in years, that’s really sad. (are you also a dead white dude? that would explain much)
Also, to expand this list with authors who are much more relevant to my interests…
- Octavia Butler would give you the most perfect night of your life, but when you tried to tell anyone else about it they’d just give you a blank look and start talking about Issac Azimov (unless they’d also slept with her).
- Ursula LeGuin would invent an entirely new school of sexual gymnastics and tell you all about it in detail, but then just spend the night reading you love poetry while you grew increasingly frustrated.
- J.K. Rowling would invite you for an elaborate meal at her wondrous castle, and when you were thoroughly enchanted would show you to her dungeon and flog you until you could cry no more tears, and you would love every moment of it.
- Tolkien would entice you with mind-blowing videos depicting his prowess, but once he got you in the bedroom would just talk your ear off until you fell asleep.
- Suzanne Collins would be just like Rowling, only her dungeon would be more elaborate and she would engage in far less foreplay.
- G.R.R. Martin would invite you to an orgy at his sumptuous estate, where you would have a wonderful time and experience things you’d never dreamed of. There would be no survivors.
Are there people who don’t reblog this?
I can only assume that the ones who haven’t aren’t reading the right books.
YOU CANT JUST KILL FRED AND FINNICK AND EXPECT ME TO KEEP MY CALM
OR HEDWIG
OR SNAPE
oR AUGUSTUSI YELLED AND SCREAMED WHEN DOBBY DIED
Dios mio, the notes
Believe me: I hardly expected it to pass 10k.
By the way, lovelies…
Spoilers.
Picking the right names for your characters is a small but important part of developing your short story or novel. This process comes easily to some writers. It’s one of the first things they decide, and everything about those characters develops naturally from there. For other writers, however, picking a name feels as monumental as naming a newborn baby.
And that’s no exaggeration!
Before you start scrambling for the baby name books, here are a few things to consider when coming up with names for your characters.
I WASNT SUPPOSED TO BUY ANY BOOKS UNTIL I FINISHED THE ONES THAT I ALREADY OWN BUT I DID ANYWAY
this is the title of my autobiography
(Source: dellycartwright)
I have found my new favourite website outside of Tumblr.
Pros: A very long, daily list of “free for today” Kindle books from Amazon. Especially great for those of us who would love to spend all our money on books but can’t afford it right now.
Cons: Downloading anywhere from ten to twenty new books a day is a little tiring for those of us who meticulously sort our Kindle archive into folders.
Books are sort of like the TARDIS.
Their content exceeds their mass.
And they take us to worlds and times we’ve never dreamed of seeing.
(Source: sherlala)
We all know that sex sells. But when it comes to writing, it can be difficult to pull off a sex scene. In certain genres (like general fiction and memoir), a writer takes a big risk by exposing nitty-gritty details. An analogy explains why:
- A badly written scene is NOT the guy who lights up the party. But at least nobody pays attention to him.
- A badly written sex scene is the guy who does too many shots, gets up on the table to dance, hurls on his shoes, and then drunk-dials every ex-girlfriend in his phone before passing out in the bathroom.
In other words, when a love scene goes wrong, it goes really wrong. Sex scenes, especially bad ones, stand out.
