Review: The Liar’s Companion: A Field Guide for Fiction Writers, by Lawrence Block
The Liar’s Companion: A Field Guide for Fiction Writers is another delightful book of columns from Mr. Block’s stint as a columnist for Wrters’ Digest.
I especially found interesting his essay on the use of present tense. Seriously. In fact, I tried to change my favorite Emily Dickinson poem into the present tense, per the discussion, and found that I agree with Mr. Block. If you have time, and a favorite short piece of prose or poetry, I recommend trying this to see what you think.
Block discusses many things in this book, including writers’ block, character, false starts, ideas on how writers write, writers’ colonies, writers’ groups, rejection, diverging from your book outline, reading as a writer, and many other relevant topics.
While this book is geared toward fiction writers, I think anyone who enjoys Block’s writing will come away from it with a better understanding of writing and writers.
Not Just Another Grouchy Grammarian 