How to Write Like a Writer by Thomas C. Foster
How to Write Like a Writer (Harper Perennial) by educator and New York Times best-selling author Thomas C. Foster may soon become an essential addition to home and office library bookshelves.
His inspirational magic formula for finding one’s voice and communicating clearly comes from forty years of experience in effectively teaching English, Greek and Roman literature, nonfiction and creative writing. Foster has distilled practical training into a compact guidebook on writing, ready for gift wrapping for your favorite high school or college student or anyone in need of a confidence booster.
The book’s subtitle succinctly says it all: “A sharp and subversive guide to ignoring inhibitions, inviting inspiration, and finding your true voice.” It is not a cure for illiteracy but rather an encouragement for alleviating page paralysis and honing basic skills learned in school in order to express oneself.
LEARN EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION
In a technologically centered environment where every kindergartner learns keyboarding, an employee will be in high demand when they can proficiently ghostwrite a senior vice-president’s reports and speeches. Any business person who has ever had to cost justify a major company purchase or worked on strategic plans will recognize the need for creative writing.
The book is divided into three sections: Why Write?, What to Write and How, and Soaring Practice with varying numbers of chapters contained in each. There are helpful lists and suggestions for learning to effectively communicate.
Put your fears of where to place a comma or use a semi-colon aside and enjoy this heady combination of amusing anecdotes, reassuring common sense and practical information.
Not everyone will face writing a doctoral thesis but communicating clearly and effectively in writing does remain an essential, basic skill to master. Whether you are a storyteller crafting a first novel, writing essays for classes, creating sales, marketing and publicity copy, or simply hoping to get results with a powerful customer service complaint letter, How to Write Like a Writer may make your task easier.
KNOW THE BASICS AND YOU WILL SUCCEED
As Thomas C. Foster reminds the reader, “the world beyond high school is filled with required writing.” It should not fill one with dread. While it is hard work, you will get better with practice.
He addresses writing anxiety and quells fears about the process with helpful reminders: “You are the most important being in your writing world.” Finding your unique voice, using your imagination and communicating as yourself are three key factors.
Foster lays down simple rules about identifying, respecting and knowing your audience. He makes the point: “Writing is a conversation between two people, a writer and a reader,” and the number of the latter is irrelevant. This topic is covered in Chapter Two entitled “I-thou Relationships”.
Foster also discusses at length what he refers to as the “Seven Deadly Sins” of writing: worry, self-doubt, overconfidence, muddiness, vagueness, poor structure and dishonesty. The latter is the most unforgivable. Arguably, there may be additional “sins” or stumbling blocks to effective writing.
Once past these, he addresses what makes a good thesis or story followed by detailing the writing process. What sounds like a mantra to commit to memory is this: “Any draft can be fixed except one that doesn’t exist.”
There is a meaty section entitled “Interlude” presenting rules to bend, shape and write by. The final chapters offer solid, practical writing exercises and some excellent advice such as how to begin and continue to write, read and finish your work. He concludes with a short bibliography of recommended books on writing instruction.
A STRAIGHTFORWARD GUIDEBOOK FOR ANY WRITER
Thomas C. Foster must have been the sort of memorable college professor whose classes filled up fast with long-waiting lists. Fortunately, he has written this bright, positive and helpful work.
How to Write Like a Writer is a marvelous low-cost substitute for college instruction designed for anyone who wants or needs to write better and lacks the time or money to devote to several semesters of remedial college study or workshops. This is truly an inspired writing manual for everyman. Writing can be a struggle but this slender volume can offer fine assistance in making it better.
About Thomas C. Foster:
Thomas C. Foster is a professor of English at the University of Michigan, Flint, where he teaches classes in contemporary fiction, drama, and poetry as well as creative writing and composition. Foster has been teaching literature and writing since 1975, the last 21 years at the University of Michigan-Flint. He lives in East Lansing, Michigan.
In addition to How to Read Novels Like a Professor (Summer 2008) and How to Read Literature Like a Professor (2003), both from HarperCollins, Foster is the author of Form and Society in Modern Literature (Northern Illinois University Press, 1988), Seamus Heaney (Twayne, 1989) and Understanding John Fowles (University of South Carolina Press, 1994).
Foster studied English at Dartmouth College and then Michigan State University, moving forward from the 18 and 19th centuries to the twentieth in the process. His academic writing has concentrated on twentieth-century British, American, and Irish figures and movements — James Joyce, William Faulkner, Seamus Heaney, John Fowles, Derek Mahon, Eavan Boland, modernism and postmodernism. But he reads and teaches lots of other writers and periods: Shakespeare, Sophocles, Homer, Dickens, Hardy, Poe, Ibsen and Twain.
