A review by silvernfire
Fire Up Your Writing Brain: How to Use Proven Neuroscience to Become a More Creative, Productive, and Succes Sful Writer by Susan Reynolds

4.0

In this book, Susan Reynolds talks about how the brain functions and how to best work with it to increase your focus, stimulate your creativity, and react to writing as a positive experience. This is a similar approach to [b:Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence|13126099|Wired for Story The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence|Lisa Cron|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333580864s/13126099.jpg|18301957] by Lisa Cron. But my recollection is that Cron's book focused more on writing instruction, adding relevant information on brain science where appropriate. Reynolds' book is more about the neuroscience, applying it to the act of writing. Although she mostly discusses fiction writing (novels), she also mentions other forms of writing such as journalism, screenwriting, and poetry. Indeed, I suspect that much of what Reynolds talks about could be applied to other creative pursuits, such as drawing.

The weakest part of this book is the writing instruction, the actual how-to-write-a-novel parts. They're fairly generic and don't really go into much detail. However, this is what just about every other writing reference book out there covers. Read this book if the idea of applying neuroscience to writing and creativity appeals to you, because that's where it shines, but it probably won't work as your only guide to writing a novel.