Book Review: WORDSMITHY by Douglas Wilson

Of the making of many writing books there is no end, Ecclesiastes almost says. And the Preacher would have been correct in this assessment if he had made it. There are approximately eighteen squajillion books on the craft of writing, all of them with tips and tricks to help you develop stories, cull adjectives, and kill darlings. Some of them are excellent, and I have indeed endorsed a few on this very site (namely, WRITING WITHOUT RULES by Jeff Somers and ON WRITING by Stephen King). But do we need yet another writing craft book? You might think not, and indeed I might have thought so until I read WORDSMITHY.

The first thing that will strike you about WORDSMITHY is that it is, ironically perhaps, short on words. At a mere 120 pages, it has to be one of the briefest books on writing you can find. Certainly the shortest I have ever encountered. This fact alone makes it attractive. After all, the last thing you want to be doing is spending all your time reading about writing as opposed to actually writing. But its brevity is not because Wilson has little to say. On the contrary, he has much to say. It’s just he’s good at saying a lot with relatively few words, at least in this volume.

WORDSMITHY consists of seven writing tips. Each tip is taken up in turn by the book’s seven chapters. Within each tip are seven sub-tips related to the main tip. These form the seven sub-sections of each chapter. So, for example, the first chapter’s tip is “Know something about the world.” This is subdivided into seven sections:

1. Real life duties should be preferred over real life tourism.
2. Authenticity in writing will only arise from authenticity in living.
3. Always remember that your writing will always have a message.
4. Use your conversations to hone your writing voice, and not the other way around.
5. When you’re out and about, you are watching the gaudy show called life and are trying to learn from it.
6. Live an actual life out there, a full life, the kind that will generate a surplus of stories.
7. Enjoy yourself.

At the end of each section, Wilson offers a takeaway point and some recommended reading. Each chapter concludes with a summary and more recommended reading. The point of this structure and the repetition is to hammer home all of his points and make them memorable.

Wilson’s style is very readable, and while the writing tips he gives are not all unique to him, you may find his spin on them unusual. For example,

Certain basic rules for writing are important, but it is way too easy for students to think that successful writing is a matter of not breaking any rules. So here is the most basic rule. Be yourself. Don’t be boring. And if you are boring, try to deal with that first.

WORDSMITHY, p. 32

Another good example:

If a striking expression hits you, don’t hold back just because you are writing an email to your sister… Writing ability is a developed and honed skill, and the more you develop and hone it, the more of it you will have. Writing as well as you can in every setting is the way to have reserves to draw on when it comes to writing for publication…Writing is not a zero sum game… Zero sum thinking is the result of people thinking that God is parsimonious. A bigger piece of pie here means a smaller piece there. But our world is a world in which pies grow, and those who give are those who receive back again.

WORDSMITHY, p. 83

There are some tips I’ve not seen elsewhere, but are worthy of consideration nevertheless. For example, Wilson recommends reading widely, but his reading also includes dictionaries and etymological studies. His underlying philosophy is that good writing grows out of well-cultivated soil. The environment from which your writing comes is conditioned by what you read. So learning new vocabulary, understanding how words work, as well as reading a wide variety of good literature can only benefit your writing.

I highly recommend this book to writers of all kinds, whether fiction or non-fiction. It’s the kind of book you can read quickly and then go back and re-read, taking time to digest each chapter. You may not agree with every point Wilson makes, but each one is cogently argued and worthy of consideration.

An easy 5 out of 5 Goodreads stars.