It's Book Review Time

Megan and I have a substantial collection of books on writing. While we love most of them, some, are rare gems, shiny that we refuse to let them stray far from our desks. We thought we'd share some of these with you. Every Sunday you can look forward to a book review. We'll cover writing books we love, like, and hate. We'll also sneak in books and stories that have helped us in our writing somehow.

First up is a book we just picked up: The Writer's Little Helper written by James V. Smith, Jr.

The book is a jewel, containing over two hundred forty pages of Q&A, Tools, and checklists. In fact, that's partially how the book is organized. Amid the greater organization found in the table of contents, you'll find advice distilled down into these three categories.

An example: mine and Megan's favorite out of the book is a tool: "The Scene Card." It's small, designed to be taped to the manuscript, or the notebook, or the folder. The idea is to fill one card out for each scene in your story. It helps you figure out how the scene fits into the structure of the story.

What's on the card? Here's one of the elements. The purpose of the scene: Move the story, develop characters, introduce/worsen a problem? There are others, but, the list is general and comprehensive on what a scene should do. If it doesn't fit one of these? You should probably not have it in the story. Really, I mean it.

So, would I recommend buying it? Yes, to everyone! I intend to buy another one, so Megan will stop stealing this one from me.

- Sam