Writer to Writer

by Gail Carson Levine

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

How I feel about Writer to Writer varies from chapter to chapter, section to section. Gail Carson Levine has a lot of good advice and wisdom about this topic, and she presents it in a clear, concise manner. There are tips and tricks to learn from and be reminded of, regardless of how skilled of a writer you may be. In many ways, it’s a back to basics, but the book is definitely ago chose for beginners and anyone interested in reviewing fundamentals of writing.

Writer to Writer is Gail Carson Levine’s second book on writing, with many discussions pulled directly from her blog. While I haven’t read her first book on the topic (Writer Magic), it seems Levine has a wealth of topics she’s excited to cover within the realm of writing. The blog has been running for decade, and it looks like Levine has no intention of slowing down.

There were aspects of the book I like, and aspects I didn’t. Ultimately the writing style would feed best to middle grade writers – both those who are middle graders, and those who want to write middle grade – which meant that while the overall tools are useful for anyone, this book would really shine for writers like Levine herself. Which makes sense!

It took me a long time to get through the book – far longer than I expected, given the length of the book – because Writer to Writer reads like a printed blog. It feels like a good book to pick at a little bit at a time. Levine includes a lot of writing prompts – at least three per chapter – and unfortunately timing was not great for me to follow a lot of these prompts. Writer to Writer fits best in a learning environment – I think this would be a great book to teach in a writing class, using the prompts straight from the books writing assignments. It is one that I will revisit try the prompts sometime when I feel a little bit more spare time.

The pacing was a bit slow, and the delivery bit labored at times – but that is true of any book of this type. There was only one part I didn’t like and that was the section on writing poetry. It wasn’t really the type of advice I signed up for, but it also felt weaker than the rest of the book. Levine clearly has a passion for poetry, but those chapters were so laden with examples instead of advice that they felt a little out of place.

Generally Writer to Writer is chockfull little gems of advice, but it is better served as a reference book than a straight-through read. It’s something I would look back on for occasional inspiration and even gift writer friends, but I will not say it was a groundbreaking book.