Write Away by Elizabeth George
Write Away by Elizabeth George
Introduction
Write Away by Elizabeth George details the author’s teaching method as a creative writing teacher and her writing methods as a bestselling psychological suspense writer. Her thesis is that writing is an art and a craft. The art lives inside the author, but the craft can be taught. Learning the craft of writing puts the author in the proper frame of mind to explore the inspiration of the art of writing. The first part of the book covers those craft ideas using concrete examples. The second half of the book shows examples from the author’s writing illustrating how she constructs her novels, the writing life.
Summary – Part One
She divided Write Away by Elizabeth George into five parts. I will cover each of the five parts and explain the fact I find most interesting in each part.
Part One summarizes the craft. The story has four components: Character, Setting, Landscape (aka World-building), and Plot. The two key concepts are Character is Story and Dialogue is Character.
Part Two is The Basics. The building blocks of the story are Idea, Viewpoint, Voice, Dialogue, and Scene. After she gets an idea, she turns it into a step outline, then a running plot outline. She gives an example of a step outline from her novel A Place of Hiding. The Goodreads link for the novel is: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31367.A_Place_of_Hiding
She gives an example of a running plot outline from her novel In the Presence of the Enemy.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77097.In_the_Presence_of_the_Enemy
Summary – Part Two
Part Three is Technique. She says good writing comes from craft and using craft comes from knowing how to use the tools of language. In this part, she examines specific considerations for writing suspense.
Part Four is Process. She reviews how she developed the ideas for her novel, In the Presence of the Enemy.
Part Five is Examples and Guides. The author summarizes examples of other author’s guides to writing. She examines The Seven-Step Storyline, The Hero’s Journey, Gustav Freitag’s Pyramid, and Three- Act Structure.
She replicates her Character Prompt Sheet, which she uses as a prewriting activity. Then she reprints her initial character sketch for Eve Bowen from the novel, In the Presence of the Enemy.
Next is a list of places where people work. Finally, she has a list of actions which she calls THADs. THAD is Talking Head Avoidance Devices. They are things for the character to do to avoid he said/ she said static dialogue.
The last chapter is named The Process in a Nutshell. It is a step-by-step list with references to the applicable chapter in the book.
Recommendation
Write Away by Elizabeth George is a brilliant book on writing. I first learned of this book from reading the recommended list of writing books on K. M. Weiland’s website. I’m glad I picked this book up. Elizabeth George is a plotter. Plotters make detailed plot outlines before they write, while Pantsers write as their fancy takes them and fixes the story in revision. In my opinion, all writers are somewhere on that continuum. I consider myself a Plotter and was interested to follow Elizabeth George’s method. I’m glad I read this book and plan to use some of the advice in my next project.
Links
This is the link to the Goodreads page of Write Away by Elizabeth George.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1848441.Write_Away
I read Write Away by Elizabeth George because K. M. Weiland recommended it on her website. https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/ K. M. Weiland also wrote a book on writing called Structuring Your Novel. I read that book and wrote a review linked below.
Another similar book on writing is On Writing Well by William Zinsser. This book the classic guide to writing non-fiction. It is littered with quotable quotes and excellent advice. Any writer would find help with this book.