250 Things You Should Know About Writing

250 Things You Should Know About Writing by Chuck Wendig
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The writing bug has been gnawing on my brainstem lately so I decided to pick up another writing book on the cheap. In 250 Things You Should Know About Writing, Chuck Wendig serves up 11 lists of 25 items each on various writing subjects. Yes, both Chuck and I realize that adds up to 275, not 250.

Since I've got to pad this review somehow, here is the list of topics covered:
- Being a Writer
- Writing a Novel
- Storytelling
- Character
- Plot
- Dialogue
- Description
- Editing, Revising, Rewriting
- Getting Published
- Writing a Fucking Sentence
- Writing a Screenplay

Chuck covers all these topics in style that's both informative and has the same sense of humor his blog posts have. So, if you don't appreciate his sense of humor, you're not going to be able to stomach this book.

As far as the writing advice goes, most of it is of the common sense variety. I found some of it useful but none of it revolutionary. It's not going to eclipse Stephen King's On Writing or Lawrence Block's Telling Lies for Fun and Profit. The entertainment value is very high for a writing book, though.

If you're a Chuck Wendig fan and need some writing tips, this will serve you well. It's not one of my favorite writing books but you could do a lot worse. And it's cheap. Three out of Five stars.




View all my reviews