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Genre: Nonfiction/Writing
87 pages excluding appendix, 159 pages including appendix (trade paperback)
I picked this book up at the school library while searching for the MLA citation handbook--it looked interesting and helpful. Sadly, I really only got two worthwhile exercises out of the entire thing, and I had to deal with Allen's pretentious prejudice against genre writers the whole time. Just a few aggravating quotes: "This book needs customers to buy it, and the publisher and author are just as willing to accept money from deadwood, nonreading writers as we are from writers with some potential." [6] For love of the God that I don't believe in, if you dislike reading, why are you even talking a writing class or reading a how-to book on writing? (That quote was NOT sarcasm in context, by the way.)
Also: "Real writers buy books." [11] So "real writers" can't be poor and choosy about what they spend their hard-earned money on? Allen insinuates that people who make good use of the library are destroying the publishing industry and, of course, can't ever be real writers. Then he implies that "pop fiction" (genre) authors aren't "serious writers" [73] and don't write anything "that makes the world a more interesting place and makes people think something they haven't thought before." [74] Apparently Allen is under the impression that all genre fiction follows generic formulas. Perhaps if he ever bothered reading some decent fantasy or sci-fi, he'd actually know what he was talking oh-so authoritatively about.
And I didn't even write up all my notes, since some of them (like being annoyed at the appendix) are just personal quirks.
87 pages excluding appendix, 159 pages including appendix (trade paperback)
I picked this book up at the school library while searching for the MLA citation handbook--it looked interesting and helpful. Sadly, I really only got two worthwhile exercises out of the entire thing, and I had to deal with Allen's pretentious prejudice against genre writers the whole time. Just a few aggravating quotes: "This book needs customers to buy it, and the publisher and author are just as willing to accept money from deadwood, nonreading writers as we are from writers with some potential." [6] For love of the God that I don't believe in, if you dislike reading, why are you even talking a writing class or reading a how-to book on writing? (That quote was NOT sarcasm in context, by the way.)
Also: "Real writers buy books." [11] So "real writers" can't be poor and choosy about what they spend their hard-earned money on? Allen insinuates that people who make good use of the library are destroying the publishing industry and, of course, can't ever be real writers. Then he implies that "pop fiction" (genre) authors aren't "serious writers" [73] and don't write anything "that makes the world a more interesting place and makes people think something they haven't thought before." [74] Apparently Allen is under the impression that all genre fiction follows generic formulas. Perhaps if he ever bothered reading some decent fantasy or sci-fi, he'd actually know what he was talking oh-so authoritatively about.
And I didn't even write up all my notes, since some of them (like being annoyed at the appendix) are just personal quirks.
