Unusually, I will start this review by issuing a caveat.
If you are hoping to find out how to write convincing dialogue, how to
use punctuation correctly, or where to get some ideas, this really is not
the book for you and you would be wasting your money if you were to buy it.
Despite the all-encompassing title, it really isn’t that kind of book.
As to what kind of book, it actually is, that question is
a little more difficult to answer. In the introduction, Steven Earnshaw
describes the Handbook as being ‘aimed primarily at the student embarking
on a creative writing programme in Higher Education’, which suggests it
might be a textbook. Except that he suggests it is a book for tutors too.
‘The aim throughout has been to have within the pages of a single book all
that you might need as a writer or tutor to further your writing and
teaching, and to further your writing career.’
In all, the effect is rather off-putting, for potential
student and potential tutor alike. The sense is very much that this handbook
is endeavouring to please everyone while failing to be of use to anyone,
which is not a promising start. However, as it turns out, this is a
fascinating and helpful guide, aimed at a particular audience, but one that
is a little difficult to define in a few words. It is also, dare I say
it, slightly hamstrung in its purpose by the inclusion of ‘handbook’ in the
title.
Anyone who has spent time in a university English
department in the last ten years will be well aware that courses in
creative writing, at undergraduate and postgraduate level, are absolutely
the up and coming thing. These days it’s a rare institution of higher
education that doesn’t offer at least one undergraduate module focusing on
the practice rather than the theory of writing. Indeed, in some English
departments, practical creative writing is seen more and more as a vital
tool to used alongside critical theory in studying texts.
On the other hand, more than one creative writing student
is disturbed to find that he or she is also required, as part of their
course, to study literature from a theoretical point of view. It is
something they are frequently not prepared for, and just as frequently, they
cannot see the point of doing so when all they want to do is to write. At
the heart of this book, therefore, is a paradox. Is it possible to practise
creative writing as an academic subject? Likewise, is it possible to teach
it? To study the business of writing? Should one even try? Needless to
say, there is no one clear answer, but I do think this book addresses some
of the questions that arise.
The book is divided into three sections, of which I think
Section One – Writing:Theories and Contexts may prove most contentious to
those who just want to get on with it, rather than worrying about the
history or the theory. Yet, as the various articles show, there is a lot
to be gained from having some sense of where one stands as a writer in the
twenty-first century, of being able to appreciate what has gone before and
to think about where literature is heading, not to mention how
literature has been shaped as much by criticism and theory as by writers
simply working.
Section Two – The Craft of Writing and Section Three –
The Writer’s Life – deal more directly with the day-to-day experience of
being a writer, but once again the various chapters take a slightly more
detached view of their subject: it’s not so much ‘how to’ as ‘this is why we
…’, and philosophical as much as it is practical. It is admittedly not to
everyone’s taste but if you hate taking things at face value, without
understanding why they happen the way they do, then this is definitely the
book for you.
At the same time, it is still chockful of practical
information; it’s just that the chapters on various different forms and
genres are not cast in the form of ‘do this, then do this,’ and so on.
Indeed, one of the things I find particularly impressive about this
handbook is the breadth of its coverage. I cannot think, for example,
when I last saw a guide to writing that specifically discussed the business
of writing and selling poetry, let alone such things as translation, writing
creative non-fiction, and writing as ‘therapy’. All this stands alongside
more conventional topics like writing for children, writing crime fiction,
and so on. The business of being a writer is handled in the same way. The
standout chapter here is the most comprehensive account of copyright issues
I have ever seen.
How to best describe this book? To say it is more
‘cerebral’, more ‘intellectual’ is to make it sound unreadable. It isn’t,
but neither is it a true self-help book, or a ‘by numbers’ account of how to
write and get published. This is a serious handbook for people who approach
the business of writing in a particular fashion, for whom simply ‘doing’
isn’t quite enough; it’s for people who need to know ‘why’ as well as ‘how’.
On that basis, I have no hesitation in recommending it.
Reviewed by Maureen
Kincaid Speller
