Good prose
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Average rating3
15
Ratings2
Average rating3
From the inside flap: ...*Good Prose* explores three major nonfiction forms: narratives, essays, and memoirs. Kidder and Todd draw candidly, sometimes comically, on their own experience--their mistakes as well as accomplishments--to demonstrate the pragmatic ways in which creative problems get solved. They also turn to the works of a wide range of writers, novelists as well as nonfiction authors, for models and instruction....
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Wanna-be writers like me are always looking for good books on good writing. I love Tracy Kidder's writing and, if Richard Todd is, indeed, Kidder's long-time editor, then he is also on my Good Boy list.
So I thus fell into that old trap of Anticipating and Having Expectations that so often disappoints.
I tell you this so you won't Anticipate and Expect, too.
This is a lovely book, a lovely story of friendship and learning to work together, and learning to write and learning to edit, but it is not much of a book about how to write well. That isn't to say that this book isn't full of ideas about how to write well, but put it down if it's an authoritative how-to book that you are seeking. Lots of stories that will make you smile if you've read much Kidder but that's really it.
I'm going to really be daring here—as I step out on a thin limb—and assert that in my (VH) opinion what this book could have used is a good editor. And a better title.
Just my two cents as a reader. And let me close by using an old psychological technique of Blaming the Victim: had this been a better how-to book, perhaps I could now be writing a better review of this book.
