All the Words: A Year of Reading About Writing

If you read one book about writing every week for a year what would you learn?Thanks to the self-publishing revolution and events like National Novel Writing Month the genre of writing craft books has exploded in recent years. Book editor Kristen Tate set out to read and review one writing advice book each week for a year from classics like E. M. Forsters Aspects of the Novel and Anne Lamotts Bird by Bird to newer works like Jane Alisons Meander Spiral Explode and Jessica Brodys Save the Cat! Writes a Novel.What she discovered was a dizzying array of approaches to writing: plotters who know even the smallest details about characters before they write a word; pantsers who blithely dive right into a draft without a plan; anti-adverb crusaders and advocates for complex sentences; and always that the best way to learn is to read the kinds of books you want to write.All the Words is also a meditation on the challenges and pleasures of starting and sustaining a weekly practice of reading thinking and writing. Its an optimistic encouraging book that will motivate you to keep reading and most importantly keep writing.