YOUR STORY MATTERS

Tips and exercises for budding writers from a veteran Canadian novelist.

Aside from opening with an ungracious comment that studying how stories work is “more fun than the other things you learn about in school,” Scrimger presents plenty of spot-on suggestions and insights for crafting effective beginnings, middles, ends, and revisions. “My hack,” he writes, “is to look inside yourself for something you truly care about. It’s harder to be boring when you care.” Along with this and other essential basic principles, he infuses his discourse with pop quizzes, writing exercises, and occasional recaps that culminate in a closing section of summary takeaways. His claim to an approach that will produce not only better writers but better readers, TV watchers, and gamers may be a bit of a reach, but like all good storytelling manuals, this one provides both warm encouragement and a selection of time-tested tools for hesitant wordsmiths. Given that Scrimger draws heavily on school talks and workshops, the tone does occasionally wax didactic, but the book’s mood is lifted by the many amusing examples and anecdotes, plus McFadzean’s broadly comical spot art and cartoon caricatures. People depicted in the illustrations are racially diverse.

A bit lecture-y, but engaging and useful nonetheless.