Wordsmithy

A two-week camping trip doesn’t make you a mountain man, and a three-week job does not constitue the kind of life experience platform that will bear the weight of a lifetime of writing. If you want to say a lot, you need to have a lot to say.

Wordsmithy by Douglas Wilson is a book every writer should read. It’s the kind of book I could read many times and still learn something new. It’s most applicable to fiction writers, but all writers can learn something from these nuggets of advice. In this review, I’ll break summarize the main points and give my key takeaways.

Summary

Wordsmithy is for writers of every sort, whether experienced veterans, still just hoping, or somewhere in between. Through a series of out-of-the-ordinary lessons, each with its own takeaway points and recommended readings, Douglas Wilson provides indispensable guidance, showing how to develop the writer’s craft and the kind of life from which good writing comes.

Wilson introduces the book by giving seven pieces of advice:

1. Know something about the world.
2. Read.
3. Read mechanical helps.
4. Stretch before your routines.
5. Be at peace with being lousy for a while.
6. Learn other languages.
7. Keep a commonplace book.

He expounds on each of these in every chapter, dividing the point into seven more points. Each section concludes with a recap of the main points and further recommended reading.

Every sentence in this book is concise and loaded with insight. Rather than belaboring points, he understates them, leaving the reader to ponder all that it might mean. If pondered and applied, the guidance in this book will undoubtedly make you a better writer.

A Life Worth Writing About

The book’s first point, know something about the world, was one of the most interesting to me. Real-life experience is something that must be known first-hand, not read about in writing manuals, and the author makes this clear. Venturing out of the writing studio and into the real world gives a writer understanding of the people he hopes to write about and the things they believe.

Wilson also encourages aspiring writers to live a full life full of adventures, the kind that God intends us to have. A life like this will generate an abundance of stories worth telling, and it’ll make you a better person in general. Rather than viewing the outside world as a trip to the library where you’ll research for your essay, view it as your primary duty—because it is.

This was one of my main takeaways. Half of being a good writer is being a good person. As a writer, it’s easy to think that the majority of your waking hours should include writing, whether learning the craft, building a platform, or working on a project. But a life of merely writing gives you nothing to write about except the life of writing. Serving, fulfilling duties, working hard, and investing in others is more than just book research, but it is not less.

Practice Makes Perfect

This paragraph from the chapter entitled “The Memoirs of Old Walnut Heart” caught my attention.

Concert pianists can do what they do because they practiced scales for years. So most of the music that comes from them over the course of their lives gets thrown away in the practice studio. The quality of what you keep will be directly proportional to how much you are willing to throw away.

Since I’m a pianist myself, this comparison made perfect sense and gave me a new understanding of my current place in the writing journey. All the hours spent typing and typing and throwing the results away are not for nothing.

As the author explains, while the writing may be trashed, the better writer left behind remains. The goal of practicing scales is not to be a world-renowned scale player. It’s to be the kind of pianist who can play beautiful music. The same applies to writing.

Another section in this chapter talked about the incorrect view of talent, that skill in a certain area is something you’re either born with or without. Rather, proficiency in anything can be attained by anyone with enough hard work. (If you want more information on that, specifically related to writing, read this post from The Young Writer.)

This, combined with the previously mentioned part about throwing writing away, encouraged me in a few ways. Every word I write is another step toward mastery, even if the words themselves never see the light of day.

Overall

There’s much to be learned in Wordsmithy. Whether you’re a new writer, a writing veteran, or somewhere in between, you’ll pick up something new. If I were to list everything I learned, this review would be much longer. Every writer should have this book on their shelf and reference it often.

If you’re interested in reading more about the writing craft, check out Did God Put A Book Inside Of You? by Jerry Ross.

Thanks for reading!