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Class Notes: The Art of the Book Review

Picture of a bookThe first session of this class went well! Nisi Shawl was a terrific guest speaker.

In talking about reviews, we talked about good reviews and what they do. Here’s the notes from that.

  • Provide a sense of the reviewer, their styles and biases.
  • Explain what makes the reviewer say something is very good or very bad.
  • Provide a sense of the book’s context and comparable books.
  • Make you want to read the book but without creating unreasonable expectations.
  • Alert the reader to problematic things without providing preconceptions.
  • Be diplomatic but honest.
  • Provide an educated impression of the book that tells the reader whether or not they should invest time/money in the book.
  • Delve into what about the book created a particular impression.

Other topics we touched on: how you get started doing book reviews, what limits to have regarding spoilers, how to write a negative review well, promoting yourself and your reviews, networking, how to evaluate reviews, and the best way(s) to get better at reviewing. I thought it went really well and had plenty of interesting conversation and questions.

The next Art of the Book Review online class will happen Sunday, March 30, 9:30-11:30 AM PST. Nisi will be appearing as a speaker for the class in this session as well.

One Response

  1. “Complaining is like sitting in a rocking chair. You can get lots of motion, but you ain’t going nowhere….” (Rarity from the Hollow)

    Nevertheless, I make a complaint about reader reviews. I sent a kudo yesterday to a woman that burned a Kindle that had a mountain of likes and positive reviews. I’ve read lots of free or $.99 books ordered by my daughter-in-law. In summary, they all sucked. I’ve vowed to never read another book that doesn’t have a professional review, such as by the Missouri Review or Midwest Review.

    Do you think I’m making a mistake. I’m 62 — that may affect your advice. Thanks,

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"(On the writing F&SF workshop) Wanted to crow and say thanks: the first story I wrote after taking your class was my very first sale. Coincidence? nah….thanks so much."

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Rambo Academy Sale Through December 31

News and More Stuff from Chez Rambo

Happy end of the year to all of you!

UPDATE: This went so well and everyone was so grateful that I went ahead and extended the sale through the end of the year. There are new links below to coupons that should let you access the classes at the $5 price. Let me know if there are any issues!

We are wrapping up the end of the year with a special promotion for THREE DAYS ONLY, December 24-26, by offering all Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers on-demand classes, including the ones from Ann Leckie, Rachel Swirsky, and Juliette Wade, for $5 or less.

Yep, that’s right. For less than $50 you can, in fact, buy access to every class we currently offer. Did I mention it’s only through midnight of the 26th, aka three days (well, a little more since this is going out Sunday evening) only?

This is a let’s-close-out-2018-with-a-bang promotion and won’t be repeated again until next December (if we do). Here insert me talking in a Thunderdome announcer’s voice and repeating that vital phrase, THREE DAYS ONLY.

Seriously, though. If you want to pick up one (or many) of the classes, now’s the time, and you have lifetime (well, Teachable’s lifetime, which may or may not match mine or yours) access.  And pass this offer along to as many people as you like, particularly your writing groups and friends. The more the merrier.

Want a live class? There’s still a few slots open in Stories That Change Our World as well as all the other live January classes, including opportunities with Seanan McGuire, Rachel Swirsky, and Fran Wilde.

And look for plenty of new Rambo Academy material there in the coming year, including on-demand versions of the Flash Fiction workshop, Punk U: How to Write -punk Fiction, Rachel Swirsky’s Speculative Poetry class, James Sutter’s High-Speed Worldbuilding, a class from Diane Morrison on time management and writing in odd moments “” and more.

Click on the links to access the sale coupons:

Character Building Workshop for $5

Description and Delivering Information for Genre Writers for $5

Hex Engines & Spell-Slingers: Write Steampunk/Weird Western for $5

Literary Techniques for Genre Writers for $5

Moving from Idea to Finished Draft for $5

Old Stories Into New with Rachel Swirsky for $5

The Power of Words with Juliette Wade for $5

Reading to an Audience Workshop for $3

Rewriting, Revising, and Fine-Tuning Your Fiction for $5

To Space Opera and Beyond with Ann Leckie for $5

Recent Stuff from the Blog and Patreon

I’m continuing to update the listing of awards posts from F&SF publishing people every few days. Let me know if yours should be on there.I talked about the process behind the development of one of my favorite stories, “Rappacini’s Crow.”

I tried to consolidate a lot of useful resources for F&SF writers into this page, and am working on one for online writing workshops next. Suggestions for items to include on either page are welcome.

J.D. Moyer on Writer’s Workshops with Kim Stanley Robinson

Bitterballen ““ Carleton Chinner Presents The Tastiest Snack You’ve Never Heard Of

Jennifer Lee Rossman talks about her new novel, Jack Jetstark’s Intergalactic Freakshow

Edward M. Erdelac talks about his novel The Knight With Two Swords and The Women of Arthurian Lore 

Interested in doing a guest blog post? The guidelines are newly updated to include more possibilities.

This month I featured a charity for holiday giving each day on my Patreon page. You can find them all here, regardless of whether or not you’re a Patreon supporter. Other things supporters got included a Q&A with Taco, photos of the current craft project, recipes, writing tips and resources, market news, snippets, and access to the Chez Rambo Discord server. Check out the Patreon page to find out how you can join our community!

The December giveaway is a novel critique by Cat. Mail me at cat AT kittywumpus.net by midnight December 31 with the subject line “December 2018 Giveaway.”

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Upcoming Workshops

Picture of a grey cat looking upward from a box. The inside lid reads "Hey good looking". The cat's name is Clark.
The message approved by the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers marketing department.
I’ve been rearranging the school somewhat, and part of that is a plan to continue doing multi-session classes, rather than a mixed bag of single session ones. Most of these will be on Saturday morning/afternoons, but I will try to mix things up a bit here and there so people in different time zones don’t have to get up at 3 AM.

Right now, I’m teaching my Extended Novel Workshop, aimed at people who have a novel in mind and want to work on preplanning and creating a schedule in which to execute it. We’re on week four of that right now, and today’s session will focus on worldbuilding. I’m really enjoying this workshop, and it’s such a great group of talented people. I can’t wait to read some of these books. So I definitely want to keep giving this each year.

I also want to do my Writing F&SF Stories workshop, and I’ll offer that in the Jan/Feb 2025 timeframe. That will feature six sessions on writing short stories, including writing and critiquing stories.

I’ve switched to a two months on, two months off model, which gives me more time to focus on writing and also helps me replenish my internal extroversion fuel. So I’ll offer one other extended workshop in the May/June period but I’m still figuring out what I want to do with that. Possibilities include:

  • an advanced Writing F&SF Stories workshop
  • a survey class on 20th century F&SF stories that would be reading & discussing multiple stories from a specific era each session
  • a multi-session workshop on increasing emotional depth and complexity in your work
  • a multi-session workshop focusing on literary techniques

I’d also like to do something on teaching writing sometime, but I don’t know if that would be one session or several.

Please tell me what you think. Are these appealing? Is there something you’d like to see me teach? As always, Patreon subscribers will get first chance to sign up for and a discount on these classes.

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