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A review by jeremy_bearimy
How to Write Like Tolstoy: A Journey into the Minds of Our Greatest Writers by Richard A. Cohen (born 1947)
3.0
It doesn't surprise me that this book began as a series of university lectures. The author throws in some fun anecdotes but the overall tone is professorial. He also seems to assume that the reader already has extensive knowledge of capital L Literature with casual references to authors and books that I'd never heard of despite being a generally well-read person. As suggested by the book's title, most of his examples are drawn from the classical (Western) canon.
Some of the chapters had a more theoretical bent, such as one that included a deep dive on the relative merits of story- and plot-based approaches to writing. For the most part, I found those discussions interesting, but less helpful than chapters with more advice about the nuts and bolts of writing. I particularly enjoyed the chapters about points of view and dialogue. My enjoyment of this book also increased when I stopped reading the dense footnotes and started skimming detailed examples that I didn't find helpful.
My overall takeaway from this book is that every question I might ask about how to be a better writer has several equally correct answers that ultimately come down to personal preference. I can't decide if that takes some of the pressure off or leaves me feeling even more confused about how to proceed. I suspect that there will be a lot of trial and error in my writing future.
Some of the chapters had a more theoretical bent, such as one that included a deep dive on the relative merits of story- and plot-based approaches to writing. For the most part, I found those discussions interesting, but less helpful than chapters with more advice about the nuts and bolts of writing. I particularly enjoyed the chapters about points of view and dialogue. My enjoyment of this book also increased when I stopped reading the dense footnotes and started skimming detailed examples that I didn't find helpful.
My overall takeaway from this book is that every question I might ask about how to be a better writer has several equally correct answers that ultimately come down to personal preference. I can't decide if that takes some of the pressure off or leaves me feeling even more confused about how to proceed. I suspect that there will be a lot of trial and error in my writing future.