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A review by nicktionary19
Writing in the Dark by Tim Waggoner
2.0
I wanted to love Writing in the Dark. I hate giving this a two. That’s one star for each month it took me to read through this.
I see a lot of other folks love this one. After all, it won a Stoker - which is what finally convinced me to have my library order it. This just continues my string of Stoker-winners being massive disappointments. Like, what the fuck? Over.
Right off the bat, I was annoyed by the layout. This book is textbook shaped. And then, inside, it turns out to be a textbook. There are few things I hate more than being reminded of school. I assume since TW is a teacher this was a cutesy design choice as a nod to his profession. Clever - and probably not so triggering for other folks.
The content is dull. There wasn’t much new ground tilled. I should have dnf’d six weeks ago. I never got engaged enough to keep turning pages, opting instead to set the book aside in favor of doomscrolling. Brutal.
Each chapter is capped off with exercises and Q&A with a few authors. Some of the exercises seemed interesting all of them had pretty clear goals/benefits. Again with the textbook layout. Kills me.
The Q&A is the same two questions asked of … i dunno … a hundred? different authors. Get a couple hundred more of those and make a daily tear-off calendar. I kept feeling like the blathers at the end of each chapter were more cotton batting under an already soporific read.
TLDR: you’re probably gonna love it. I’m depressed I didn’t.
I see a lot of other folks love this one. After all, it won a Stoker - which is what finally convinced me to have my library order it. This just continues my string of Stoker-winners being massive disappointments. Like, what the fuck? Over.
Right off the bat, I was annoyed by the layout. This book is textbook shaped. And then, inside, it turns out to be a textbook. There are few things I hate more than being reminded of school. I assume since TW is a teacher this was a cutesy design choice as a nod to his profession. Clever - and probably not so triggering for other folks.
The content is dull. There wasn’t much new ground tilled. I should have dnf’d six weeks ago. I never got engaged enough to keep turning pages, opting instead to set the book aside in favor of doomscrolling. Brutal.
Each chapter is capped off with exercises and Q&A with a few authors. Some of the exercises seemed interesting all of them had pretty clear goals/benefits. Again with the textbook layout. Kills me.
The Q&A is the same two questions asked of … i dunno … a hundred? different authors. Get a couple hundred more of those and make a daily tear-off calendar. I kept feeling like the blathers at the end of each chapter were more cotton batting under an already soporific read.
TLDR: you’re probably gonna love it. I’m depressed I didn’t.