In this concise little guide, you will find a short and snappy introduction to creative writing. It will serve to most readers as a reference to style for formal essays, articles or other professional or academic work. One of the aims for the book is to supply a simple easy to use guide in grammar and punctuation for new writers or a referential textbook to others. Yet reading the text what you will often find is a frumpy, uptight, anal-retentive argument being presented as fact.
One of the defining aspects of creative writing is that it allows for people to construct arguments and new concepts, develop new ideas and opinions in a way that epitomises their perspective. In this work however, the authors seem more concerned with current conventions and the retention of such from a conservative ideological perspective. It seems inherent to them at all times, to remain concise in what an author is saying; short and sweet to say the least. This advice to many authors though may end up coming across as a detriment. Instead of being allowed to flow in their natural style of progression, authors could be driven to anxiety by the books rulings into an inane state of grammatical paranoia.
The book at times seems pigeon holed for news reporters - as a lot of the advice is designed in recognition of newspaper reporting. Its suggestions relate heavily to clarity, and only recommend going outside of this comfort zone if you are confident of the sentences overall conclusion. Throughout the book, there did seem to be many long-winded sentences whilst explaining particular hypothesis. As the reader here, you did get the sense that some of these points could be fervour shortened, (as the book had previously advised its readers to do on the same subject).
Yet, as a reference guide, the book is a great source for writers. The book, like creative writing itself, requires a critical eye to annotate what is and isn’t necessary. It does provide some good critical advice for authors in their work, but also includes pieces of opinion presented to the reader as fact. Because of this it is important to think for yourself in examining this work. What works for you may not work for others, and because of this it is important to be concise. But unlike this book suggests, it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to shorten your wording. If your wording is more concise and to the point in a longer breathe then it should be allowed to stay as such.
In the end, a lot of this book will be liked or disliked due to the individual’s opinion. The question then is would this be a good recommendation for new writers, with this clearly being the target audience? Well yes and no. It undoubtedly has information that would be invaluable to any new writers however it’s often derogatory presentation of information might do harm to discourage a young writers progression.
What’s most important here really is that any who might read this take the information with a pinch a salt. For those who may be interested, it’s important not to allow yourself to feel discouraged by the advice of the book. Taken to context, the book provides a great level of information for writers. However as an introduction to the elements of style, it does seem to come across as unnecessarily abrasive, to the likes of which an introduction to any subject simply shouldn’t.
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