The Forest for the Trees
by Betsy Lerner
Buy on Amazon"The shelves are crowded with books on how to write. But as Lerner says, she doesn't plan to Strunk you over the head about style. Instead, on the basis of her close work with writers, she attempts to describe the writer's psyche. Here are stories about those writers who typically help or hurt their own cause as they seek publication. In the first half of the book, she identifies six classic personality types and their attendant behaviors. Lerner understands the anxieties and concerns of writers just getting started as well as those stalled mid-career. In the second half of the book, she takes readers through the publishing process from first contact to first contract to first glowing or gutting review."--BOOK JACKET.
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"Yes, she was an editor at several major American publishing houses, such as Simon & Schuster. She went on to become an agent, and also did an MFA in poetry before that, so she came through the US creative writing process and understands where many writers are coming from. The book is divided into two halves. In the second half she describes the process that goes from the completion of the author’s manuscript to submitting it to agents and editors. She explains what goes on at the agent’s offices and the publisher’s offices. She talks about the drawing up of contracts, negotiating advances and royalties. So she takes the manuscript from the author’s hands, all the way through the publishing process to its appearance in bookshops. She describes that from an insider’s point of view, which is hugely interesting. But the reason I like this book is for the first half of it, which is very different. Here she offers six chapters, each of which is a character sketch of a different type of author. She has met each of them and so although she doesn’t mention names you feel she is revealing something to you about authors whose books you may have read. She describes six classic personality types. She has the ambivalent writer, the natural, the wicked child, the self-promoter, the neurotic and a chapter called ‘Touching Fire’, which is about the addictive and the mentally unstable. It is very entertaining and informative and it is also hugely affirming. I identified myself with each one of the six types. There is a bit in each of them that sounded just like me. And I thought, well if they can get published so can I. You do often worry that you are an impostor, that you are only pretending to be a writer and that real writers are a completely different breed, but actually this book shows they can be just like you."
Creative Writing · fivebooks.com