This is low-level nuts and bolts stuff. I think it might be useful for teaching high schoolers, but I teach more high brow stuff in my class, so who knows. ( )

Great discussion about how to think about writing from both a writer's and reader's perspective. I definitely want to go back and actually do the exercises. ( )

The book itself is informative, clever, and well-written. However, I found many of the examples to be dry and irrelevant.
5 stars for the book, 3 stars for the examples. ( )

I love LeGuin's sense of humor and also bossiness (marking the text with bossy little symbols, for hard words, for instance). This is definitely a book for beginner's -- great advice from a master, but for anyone whose written for awhile, most of it is very, very basic and practically second nature. A decent refresher, but more for young people or those just starting to write. ( )

“Steering the Craft” consists of 10 chapters, each devoted to a single topic. The chapters provide a brief turorial from LeGuin’s perspective, followed by excerpts from classic works to illustrate the point. Some chapters also provide exercises readers can use to practice the skill discussed in the chapter. The topics covered are: sound and rhythm in writing; punctuation and grammar; sentence length and complexity; repetition; the use of adverbs and adjectives; verbs; point of view and voice; changing point of view; indirect narration; and crowing and leaping.

For the most part the topics are covered at a basic level and the examples vary in the clarity with which they illustrate the point she is trying to make. The most useful tutorials focus on point of view and editing. Individuals seriously interested in writing who have advanced beyond rank beginner will find little of use in “Steering the Craft” beyond those chapters. ( )

Unsurprisingly, given the author, this is very good, very deft, very wise. It has excellent advice and exercises for freeing style from the "thou shalt (nots)" that abound these days, and some elegant insight into story. ( )

This book is worth owning and keeping by one's side during each edit of each draft. Fortunately, my library has it, and so I (hope that I) can get it back out for an exercise re-read once I start my editing.

She was incredibly well-read, and put every bit of that reading to excellent use in a clear and concise work on how to write and what pitfalls to avoid as a new novelist, or an experienced writer of all types of work. ( )

Profound insights on writing presented with grace, charm and wit.

Ursula Le Guin describes Steering the Craft, A 21st-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story, as “A handbook for storytellers - writers of narrative prose and not for beginners.”
Indeed, it is not a book for beginners as much of what she addresses would be beyond the comprehension of novices. What it does concentrate on are those problems that challenge writers and impede the tone an flow of the narrative.
For example, she asks you to listen to the sound of your writing which involves diction and syntax.
Sophisticated consideration is given to verbs: person and tense, as well as point of view and changing point of view.
Indirection narration or what tells including avoiding expository lumps is discussed in depth.
There’s an excellent chapter entitled Crowding and Leaping which involves the necessity of focusing on some areas while leaping ahead in other parts while still following a fixed trajectory.
Steering the Craft is primarily a workbook with “exercise consciousness-raisers that aim to clarify and intensify your awareness of certain elements of prose writing and certain techniques and modes of storytelling."
These exercises are challenging but illuminating. I particularly benefitted from one called A Terrible Thing to Do that involved writing a narrative of about 500 words and then cutting it by half still keeping the narrative clear and not replacing specifics by generalities.
The book also includes the best advice I’ve read on running peer group writing workshops.
This slim volume has profound insights on writing and presents them with grace, charm an wit. The goal, according to the author, is to help you develop skills that free you to write want you to write.
Or as Le Guin puts it so that you’re “ready to let the story tell itself; having the skills, knowing the craft so that when the magic boat comes by, you can step into it and guide it where it wants to go, where it ought to go.” ( )

Well-known author Ursula K. Le Guin conducted a writer's workshop she turned into this book. Each chapter bears a theme with literary examples, mostly from works in the public domain, and exercises for aspiring writers to complete. She occasionally recommends other sources, such as Strunk and White, to fill a gap in the reader's writing process knowledge. Although individuals may wish to complete the exercises on their own, a writing group probably provides the greatest benefit by providing feedback from others. Le Guin includes helpful appendices on using the book in a peer group and on verb tenses. She also supplies a brief glossary. Some exercises could benefit from more detailed instructions as some did not seem clear to me as I read them. This review pertains to the 1998 edition of the book rather than the 2015 revision and update. ( )

I actually started working through this book with a small writing group. We made it to lesson 7 before stalling out, and I decided to finish reading the book solo without continuing the exercises.

I'm an experienced author with two series with a Big 5 publisher, a Nebula nomination, and a whole lot of publications with my byline. This book taught me something new in every chapter. For me, a great deal of writing is intuitive. I don't know all of the rules of grammar, and I still shudder at the thought of the diagramming I did in 8th grade. Le Guin gently explains matters like pacing and points of view and shares fantastic examples, and she gives names to the techniques that I utilize in ignorance.

This is a book that really should be done in a small writing group; there is a lot to be gained through sharing different approaches to the exercises and discussing why some of them are incredibly challenging. Highly recommend this to all writers who want to push themselves to learn more about their craft. ( )

I read sections of this book and was very impressed. Good actionable advice from a master. I found the sections on voice and tense to be particularly helpful. The second edition has just been released and I have a copy on hold at Powells. ( )

A really useful book for advanced writers. I think you need to have been writing for a while to be able to enjoy this book fully. ( )

Ursula Le Guin’s Steering the Craft is so much more than just another book on writing. This craft is a yacht steered on ocean waves, not a rubber toy bobbing in the tub. And this book is filled with wise advice, clear and well-described examples, and great exercises for people who don’t just want to write—they want to write well. It’s a book for people who love “the sound of language” and long to remove whatever is “ugly, unclear, unnecessary, preachy, careless... what doesn’t work” from their own pages to make them sound like music.

With excerpts from authors as diverse as Rudyard Kipling and Patrick O’Neil, or Zora Neale Hurston and Jane Austen, with exercises that feed into and build on each other, and with a nicely nuanced approach to grammar and other tools of the trade, the author assists our writing, so our writing can assist other people’s reading, and so the whole will be something worth both reading and listening to.

Memorable one-liners stay in the mind long after reading. Authors are reminded to take responsibility for what they write—nothing happens “somehow” without the author’s intervention. Memorable asides make lessons long-learned finally make sense—did you know grammar and punctuation exist to assist sound? And each reader will surely have their favorite lesson and favorite point. For me, the reminder that story comes first, not conflict, is a lesson that will ease my conflicted writing of tales.

Highly recommended; enjoyably readable; and filled with the sort of exercises every writing group should take time to tackle; Steering the Craft is a must-add to any writer’s bookshelf.

Disclosure: My thanks to the friend who loaned it to me from her shelf. ( )

I love this book and will be returning to it. Not so much "how to write", but more "how to play with words", Ms LeGuin shows how masterful she is turning simple letters into a sharply delicious bowl of emotion. A keeper on my bookshelf. ( )

Le Guin is one of my favorite authors. Since there is much in her writing that I would like to emulate in my own, I decided to work through the exercises in this book. I found most of the exercises were directed at the mechanics of style. If you want your writing to sound like LeGuin's, you will find these exercises enormously helpful. There are also a lot of exercises designed to get you to experiment with a wide range of options, for, say, point of view, so you have many tools to choose from if a story isn't working with the options you first selected.

However, if you want to get at the complicated things that LeGuin does so well, like mesh plot, theme and world-building, you won't find much help here. And the experienced writer, who has already worked themselves out of a number of revision problems, will probably find themselves by the end saying, "But I've already done stuff like this exercise. Is doing it again going to help me?" My answer, at least this time, was, "No." ( )

The structure of this book is quite simple but surprisingly useful. Each chapter covers a certain aspect of writing (point of view, description, dialogue, etc.), beginning with a brief overview, giving sample passages from other works, and ending with an exercise. The exercise comes with critiquing suggestions for those writing in groups and things to consider for those working alone. The occasional opinion essay comes up now and again, always labeled as such, so you know when you're learning a rule and when you're just getting another angle on the topic. I admit I didn't actually do any of the exercises, but they were interesting and worthy. Much better than your standard "describe your morning routine" exercises that show up in most writing books. I also felt like I was being treated like an adult. Le Guin is not taking you by the hand here; she is showing you the path. There is no talk of publication or rejection letters, nothing about recapturing your creativity or affirming your right to write. This book was clearly not written for people looking to write a bestselling novel or take up a brand new hobby. It is, in short, a book for people who enjoy writing and would like to do so better. Would that more writing books were of this calibre. ( )

Very useful nuts and bolts questioning of what works and why. ( )

It's kinda funny, and rather sad actually, that the required read I put off until the very last is the book I probably should have read first off. Le Guin's how-to book on creative writing isn't about plot or character or the dreaded beginnings-middles-ends, but rather the nuts and bolts of the craft of writing itself. Le Guin is a fantasy/SF writer, but this book is aimed for fiction and non-fiction writers of all kinds.

Steering the Craft is a book that is aimed at those writers who look at writing as an art, as a craft. People who are interested in writing as a skill. With this in mind, Le Guin discusses the sound of language, punctuation, syntax, the narrative sentence and paragraph, rhythm and repetition, adjectives and adverbs, tense and person of the verb, voice and point of view, implicit narration: imparting information, crowding, leaping, focus, and control. She also offers a nifty glossary full of terms that writers may not know or may not remember, as well as a lovely appendix on the peer group workshop and an even better one on forms of the verb.

It's a good book for all writers, no matter where they are in their craft, to have and refer to. Le Guin provides a great many exercises that I of course did not participate in (I have issues interrupting my reading, so sue me), but plan to use in the future. There's a lot of stuff in here that made better sense to me now after hearing my mentor harp on certain things for so long, which made me wish I'd had this book right when I started working with him, so that I'd have another point of reference to go to.

The book is also filled with a number of examples for each topic, mostly pulled from literature, and while I'll admit I would've liked to see some more modern examples of the same thing, I understand the reason Le Guin used the examples she did. So many writers aren't familiar with the classics, or are afraid of them, and it's a cool thing when you can read something out of your time and still understand it. Better still, when you can study the craft and learn something from it. I'm no stranger to classical literature, and I even enjoy it from time to time, but since I rarely read it anymore, it's not a bad thing I was forced to look at those examples.

There's so many good things in this book, though I'll be the first to admit that there were some sections that felt woefully short. At times, I'd turn a page to continue reading and then flip back, thinking I missed something. But on the whole, I feel this will be an excellent resource to have as I continue to work on my own craft, especially when it comes to revision. Again, I really should've read this book long before now.

Le Guin makes several important statements through-out the book in regards to writing and writers. But the most important, in my personal opinion, was this (emphasis mine):

Ultimately, you write alone. And ultimately you and you alone can judge your work. The judgment that a work is complete . . . can only come from the writer, and it can be made rightly only by a writer who's learned to read her own work (8).

In some ways, this book can teach writers how to "rightly read [their] own work," and will also encourage writers to seek out environments that will help them to do so. ( )

http://iamrazorwing.livejournal.com/20007.html ( )

I write short stories. This book was helpful. ( )

Finally - a writing book for people who aren't into it for therapy, mysticism, money making or muck raking. Le Guin is one of the few writers who learns from her critics, who keeps reading and writing and surprising, so it's no surprise that this is the best writer's guide I've come across. Don't ignore the section on verb tenses! ( )

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