I recently started reading A Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank. When this book first came out I poo-pooed it for its title despite a number of friends recommending it to me. I’ve read the first 40 pages or so and I am really enjoying the way it’s written. The author does so much with dialogue and action and the writing is really, really clean. By this I mean there aren’t a lot of explanatory phrases or long dialogue tags or relentless adverbs.
Each word is carefully and specifically chosen and it shows. Sometimes when people talk about the “craft” of writing I think it sounds really pretentious. But that is how I would describe her writing; very well crafted. It’s helpful to read and keep in mind as I hone and tweak my own writing.
Ideas In Things 