{"id":144,"date":"2011-08-13T23:48:03","date_gmt":"2011-08-13T23:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howardandrewjones.com\/?p=144"},"modified":"2011-08-13T23:48:03","modified_gmt":"2011-08-13T23:48:03","slug":"how-to-write-magical-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.howardandrewjones.com\/reviews\/how-to-write-magical-words","title":{"rendered":"How To Write Magical Words"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m a fan of books aimed at writers, and I&#8217;m always delighted to find another good one.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/How-Write-Magical-Words-Companion\/dp\/1933523808\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"howtomagicwords-review-e1295476993801-205x300\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blackgate.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/howtomagicwords-review-e1295476993801-205x300.jpg\" alt=\"howtomagicwords-review-e1295476993801-205x300\" width=\"205\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/How-Write-Magical-Words-Companion\/dp\/1933523808\">How to Write Magical Words: A Writer&#8217;s Companion<\/a><\/strong><\/em> debuted in January 2011. Unlike most &#8220;how to write&#8221; books that I&#8217;ve ever seen, <em><strong>Magical Words<\/strong><\/em> is presented in bite-size chunks. The authors take turns writing about  various topics, presenting short essays with information, advice, and  helpful anecdotes, then get out of the way for the next essay. None of  which are more than four or five pages long. It&#8217;s an ideal approach for  someone working in this busy modern world, or for someone under  deadline, or with kids, or who wants to read a little something before  sitting down to write for the day, and editor Edmund Schubert is to be  commended for the structure.<\/p>\n<p>The book is broadly divided into  seven categories, like &#8220;Characters, Dialogue, &amp; Point of View&#8221; or  &#8220;Self-Editing,&#8221; into which each of the short essays is placed. Perhaps  because the material originated on the web site <a href=\"http:\/\/www.magicalwords.net\/\">magicalwords.net<\/a> there&#8217;s an approachable, conversational quality to the advice &#8212;  indeed, the contributing writers often react and expand upon the advice  in the concluding remarks to each essay. As I read my way through the  book I found myself looking more and more forward to seeing what the  other writers would add, and what alternative perspective they might be  able to offer. It was a lot like listening to a group of helpful  professional writers as they trade tips among themselves &#8212; one has the  sense that they are not so much talking <em>at <\/em>you as talking in a group in which you yourself would be welcome to drop in and ask for a few tips.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.blackgate.com\/2011\/08\/13\/how-to-write-magical-words\/\"><em>Th<\/em><em>e rest of this essay can be found at the Black Gate web site.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m a fan of books aimed at writers, and I&#8217;m always delighted to find another good one. How to Write Magical Words: A Writer&#8217;s Companion debuted in January 2011. Unlike most &#8220;how to write&#8221; books that I&#8217;ve ever seen, Magical Words is presented in bite-size chunks. The authors take turns writing about various topics, presenting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.howardandrewjones.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.howardandrewjones.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.howardandrewjones.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.howardandrewjones.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.howardandrewjones.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.howardandrewjones.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"http:\/\/www.howardandrewjones.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.howardandrewjones.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.howardandrewjones.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.howardandrewjones.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}