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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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Guest Post: Catherine Lundoff Talks About Gothic Horror And Me

This Sunday, Catherine Lundoff will be teaching a class that’s particularly apropos for this Halloween-laden month, on one of my favorite flavors of horror: gothic fiction. She talks about some of the influences that have brought her to gothic fiction, and what she loves about it.

Edward Gorey was one of the guiding lights of my teenage years. I saw his sets for “Dracula” on Broadway when I was about twelve and it was like coming home, aesthetically, at least. I loved his black and white drawings, his weird stories, his obsessions with cats and opera singers. I still do. I like to think of him as my posthumous Fairy Gothmother, who opened the door to a marvelous dark universe where I could wear black all the time and didn’t need to pretend to be happy if I wasn’t.

I read Dracula, of course, and “Carmilla” and Poe and Wilde and Northanger Abbey. Austen turned me on to Ann Radcliffe, but I found Byron on my own. I discovered fashion, the kind where you rim your eyes with liner and wear multiple black on black outfits that have, perhaps, a hint of lace or silk, if you are lucky. And when I got to college, it was 1981 and there I found Adam Ant and Prince and Siouxsie Sioux, along with glorious morbid folk rock bands like Steeleye Span. So many murder ballads! So much gender play and glorious costumes! All of it became a part of me long before I thought of myself as a writer or a teacher or as Goth.

I devoured Gothic romances by the likes of Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart, Gothic horror in its multimedia splendor, even more murder ballads, artwork, outfits with all the black lace my teenage heart could imagine. Starting to write ghost stories and tales of haunted mansions could not be far behind, though in my case it started with vampire stories and editing the first (to the best of my knowledge) anthology of lesbian ghost stories. From there, I moved on to writing ghost stories myself as well as monster tales, media tie-ins, psychological horror, each story shaped and honed by my earlier reading and watching.

These days, I’m a huge fan of Gothic horror and romance films and shows like Crimson Peak, Penny Dreadful and The Addams Family. I’ve written horror tales for publications like Respectable Horror, Fireside Fiction and one of the Vampire the Gathering 20th Anniversary tie-in anthologies, as well as my own collection, Unfinished Business: Tales of the Dark Fantastic. A childhood enthusiasm has morphed into a lifelong affinity for ghosts, haunted mansions and various interpretations of the monstrous.

I love watching authors and other creators turn their eye to new interpretations of female and queer monsters and different kinds of outsider survivors. The Gothic Heroine doesn’t have to be a cisgendered white Final Girl or married under dubious circumstances to a love interest who is, perhaps, not to be trusted. I want to read more of these stories, as well as classics like The Woman in Black and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Let me help you bring your dark fiction into the light and help it come alive, no pun intended. Crimson Peaks and Menacing Mansions is an online class that I’m teaching on 10/13 from 9:30-11:30 PST at Cat Rambo’s Academy for Wayward Writers.. It will include a mix of lecture, discussion and writing exercises, as well as the opportunity to ask questions. I hope you’ll be intrigued enough to check it out!

...

Rambo Academy Certificates

The Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers now has a certification program! I wanted students to have a way to represent the work they’ve put into the live classes when applying for jobs, workshops, and other opportunities, and so I’ve put together four categories.

How it works: If you have taken five classes in a category, you have earned a certificate. Mail me with the category or categories and the names of the classes, and I will send you the certificate as a .pdf. You have permission to display it on your website.

I’m working on something similar for the on-demand classes — look for that coming soon.

The categories are:

  • WorldBuilder – Classes on worldbuilding and characters fall into this slot. Examples include: Fantastic Worldbuilding, Masks and Mayhem with Carrie Vaughn, and Writing about Horses with Judith Tarr.
  • WordWeaver – Classes that focus on language, techniques, and tools. Examples include Literary Techniques for Genre Writers, Power Word Real Name: Upping Your Game with Names and Titles, and The Power of Words.
  • StorySmith – Classes that focus on story structure, including specific genres. Examples include Flash Fiction workshop, Mapping the Labyrinth: Plotting Your Novel So Stuff Happens, and Moving from Idea to Draft.
  • Bookmonger – Classes that focus on publishing and the book industry. Examples include Book Promotion on a Budget, Managing Social Media For Writers, and So You Want to Put Together an Anthology?.
  • GameMaker – Classes that focus on writing for and building games. Examples include Adapting Your Novel into a Game, Worldbuilding for Games, and Writing Interactive Fiction.

This list is, I believe, complete, and sorts past classes into their groups. If you took a class and cannot find it on the list, mail me. If you took my six week workshop, that counts as one credit in each category. Currently almost all classes that are coming up have links; eventually this should all be filled in.

WORLDBUILDER
Beyond Bipeds: When Aliens Look Nothing Like Us
Blood, Guts, Gore & More
Character Building Workshop
Christmas in Narnia: Creating Traditions for Fictional Cultures
Consent Is Sexy: Writing Consensual Scenes
Cross-Examining Your Character
Crypto- and Xenobiology and You: How To Build a Better, More Believable Beast, Using SCIENCE!
Cussing in Secondary Worlds
Designing Magic Systems
Dialogue and Dialect
Different Kinds of Love: Writing Relationships that Aren’t Romantic
Dunking Your Reader in the Details
Eating Your Words: How to Write About Food
Fantastic Worldbuilding
Fashion of Worldbuilding: Clothing, Technology, and Taboos
Follow the Money: Using Economics in Plotting, World-building, and Character Development
Groups, Parties, and Crews: Writing Ensembles
High-Speed Worldbuilding for Games and Fiction
Historical Research for Writers
Hooray for Evil: Fearsome Monsters and Effective Villains
How to Write Better Food
How to Write Steampunk and Weird Western
In Flagrante Delicto: Writing Effective Sex Scenes
It’s Almost Here: Writing Near-term Science Fiction
Mapping Fantasy
Masks and Mayhem: How to Write Superheroes
No More Lone Wolves: Writing Characters in Community
Reasonable Consequences: Building a Better Alternate Universe
Power and Politics in Worldbuilding: Schemes, Factions, and Culture
Prophecies, Predictions, and Prognostications: Creating Fortune-Telling Systems for Your World
To Space Opera and Beyond
Queer Is a Verb: Disrupting the Norm
The Spice Must Flow: Writing Speculative Drugs
Story Generator Workshop
Systems of Magic: How to Use Your Magic to Enrich Your Worldbuilding
Taking Your Titles to the Next Level
Tarot for Writers
Where Babies Come From: Speculative Reproduction
Witches Are People Too: Writing Well-Rounded Pagans and Spellcrafters
Worldbuilding as a Banquet
Worldbuilding as a Meal
Writing about Horses
Writing Distinctive Characters
Writing Masculinity
Writing Neurodiversity
Writing Nonbinary
Writing Queer Characters from History
Writing the New Mythos

WORDWEAVER
Breaking the Rules
Description and Delivering Information
Detail and Image
Finding the Story in a Prompt
The 4th Language of of Genre Fiction
Get Weird! How to Make Your Fiction Original, Compelling, and Deeply Weird
Head Hopping and Head Hunting: Deep POV Writing
How to Write Funny
Levelling Up: Ten Things to Try When You Keep Hearing No
Literary Techniques for Genre Writers
Make Your Fiction Sing: Songwriting Techniques that Carry into Prose
Old Gods and New: Building a Pantheon
Poetic Tools for Prose Writers
The Power of Words: Linguistics for Genre Writers
Power Word Real Name: Upping Your Game with Names and Titles
Radio Gaga
Reading Like a Writer
Revising Your Novel
Rewriting, Revising, & Finetuning Fiction
Self-Editing: From First Splat to Professional Finish
Setting the Stakes: How to Pull the Reader (and Yourself) Through the Story
Sorry, But Your Infodump Is Showing
Sorry, But Your Scenecraft Is Sinking
Speculative Poetry
Staying in Your Lane
A Taste of Writing the Other
Two Truths and a Lie: Unreliable Narrators
Writing About Magic
Writing About Gender
Writing Second Person

STORYSMITH
21 Days to Writing Your Novel
The Algorithms of Storytelling
Anthropomorphic Adjectives: Writing Furry Fiction
Basics of Writing Memoir
Beginnings and Endings
Building Blocks of Mystery
Crimson Peaks and Menacing Mansions: Writing Gothic Horror
Crossing Over:Moving from Fanfic to Your Own Worlds
Demystifying Outlines
Diversity Plus: East Asian Storytelling Forms and Themes
Dynamic Openings
Emotional Impact: How to Punch ‘Em in the Feelz
Emotional Storytelling in Action Scenes
Epistolary Fiction: Stories in Letters
Expository Narrative
Fearless Writing: Learning Not to Hold Back
The First Draft Novel Blues
First Pages Workshop
Fixing the Broken Story
Flash Fiction Workshop
How to Subvert Cliches (and Supercharge Your Creativity)
How to Write Circles Around Others: Non-Linear Story Structures from Non-Western Traditions
Ideas Are Everywhere
The Ins and Outs of Urban Fantasy: Talking with L.L. McKinney
It’s Coming from Inside the House: Writing Domestic Dangers and Haunted Homes
Letting the I Ching Write Your Story for You
Mapping the Labyrinth: Plotting Your Novel So Stuff Happens
A Mixed Bag: Combining and Manipulating Genre Conventions
Move Along, Folks: How to Pace Your Novel
Moving from Idea to Draft
Old Stories Into New
Outlining for Pantsers
Pacing Yourself: The Strange and Sprawling Art of Writing a Long Series
Planning and Outlining Your Novel
Principles for Pantsers
Punk U: The Whys and Whats of Writing -punk Fiction
Replying to Other Stories
Scripts 101: Everything You Wanted to Know About Screenwriting but Were Afraid to Ask
Short Story Openings
Six Slippery Sins: Good Advice That Goes Astray
Stories That Change Our World: Writing Fiction with Empathy, Insight and Hope
Story Fundamentals
Story Structure for Novella Writers
Twenty Types of Terror: Exploring Horror Subgenres
Unique Concepts
Working in Other Worlds: Writing for Franchises
Working with Short Stories
Writing Bespoke Stories for Tailored Markets
Writing Fight Scenes
Writing in the Cracks
Writing Your Way Into Your Novel
WTFBBQ: Writing Experimental Fiction
Yucky Gets Yummy: How Speculative Fiction Creates Society

BOOKMONGER
All the Myriad Ways: Career Management for Indie, Traditional, and Hybrid Writers
The Art of the Book Review
Behind the Curtain: Nuts and Bolts of Small Press Publishing
Book Promotion on a Budget
The Business of Writing
Canva Basics for Writers
Crowdfunding and Kickstartering
Emotional Self Care for Creatives
The Freelancer’s Toolkit
Freelancing, Hustles, and Sidegigs: Ways to Work without Derailing Your Writing
Journaling for Creativity During Tough Times
Managing Social Media For Writers
Make Yourself More Discoverable Online: SEO Basics for Creative People
Pitches and Synopses
Planning a Book Publicity Campaign
Playing the Short Game
Plot Hacks: What the Pros Know
Plotting Your Trajectory: How to Plan an Unplannable Writing Career
Project Management for Writers
Reading Aloud Workshop
Return to Journaling for Creativity
So You Want to Put Together an Anthology?
Stay the Course: A Workshop for Inspiration and Renewed Enthusiasm
The Writers Guide to Selling Books at Conventions

GAMEMAKER
Adapting Your Novel into a Game
High-Speed Worldbuilding for Games and Fiction
Horror in Games
Intro to Game Writing
Planning Your Tabletop RPG Campaign
Worldbuilding for Games
Writing Interactive Fiction

...

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