Books on Writing 101: Jeff VanderMeer's "Wonderbook" (Non-fiction, Writing craft)
Books on writing 101 is a collection of book recommendations to get you started on writing. Inspirational, insightful, and entertaining books I’ve enjoyed that will help you find your own way. Everyone learns differently, but this is how I started:
Jeff VanderMeer’s “Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction”
If I had to recommend one book to a new writer, especially one who wants to work in the world of science fiction, fantasy, or weird fiction, it would be Wonderbook. Jeff VanderMeer is the author of fantastic works of poetic and devastating genre books like Annihilation (and the entire Southern Reach Trilogy), Borne, and Dead Astronauts - all of which are filled to the brim with not only vivid and horrifying imagery, but huge amounts of depth and message. Wonderbook dives deep into craft, life, and the writer’s imagination. From guest essays by Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, and Ursula le Guin, to centerfold illustrations on the depths of story structure, the book provides many avenues to create real and imaginative fiction. What I like most about the book is that it has many perspectives. There isn’t one way to do something when you write - often, there isn’t one way to do something from book to book even - so to provide a framework of encouragement, craft knowledge, and opportunity is a gift to a new writer.
“You can’t be inspired every day, just like you can’t be madly, deeply, insanely in love every day. But how such moments manifest as you move through the world and the world moves through you defines the core of your creativity.” (pg. 2)
The opening chapter is “Inspiration and the Creative Life.” At the heart of any practice, there has to be inspiration. This can come in short bursts, or lifelong avenues of wildly vivid thought. But no matter the inspiration you currently have, you must work to maintain it for very long periods, especially as you begin to write seriously. Most people don’t have the luxury of time when they start - even students have to contend with other classes, a social life, and their impending life as a working person - so you have to make the space for inspiration to last and dwell within.
I often write in the evening after work. During COVID-19, this has been a lot harder. Work is longer and more stressful than before, so when I come home I need to escape. To be outside of my mind, I often resort to endless hours of television. Not writing. But when I sit down to write, I need that inspiration to be there too. When you work this way, there isn’t a lot of space to wait for that creativity and inspiration to come. So you work on it all the time. I keep a notebook on me, always, and I think about my stories in idle moments. I develop them in my mind, and then on scraps of paper throughout the day. So when the time comes, there is something to work with.
“The most important thing is allowing the subconscious mind to engage in a kind of play that leads to making the connections necessary to create narrative.” (pg. 8)
There is the infamous shower moment. You’re working on something, you’re stuck, you can’t move forward. You sleep on it, you do something else. Then, in the shower, BAM! You’ve found the solution, and inspiration is back. The wheels are back on the bus. This happens to me a lot. I often write in the evening, some time between post-dinner and pre-sleep. I also shower in the evening, often last minute when I remember how gross of a person I am. So I give up writing for the evening, with the plan to shower and then watch some TV and go to bed. But then! Of course. Out of nowhere, my resting mind says: “Buddy, I’ve figured it out. The answer was simple all along,” and I have to go back to writing. Sometimes this answer is easy. Sometimes it would take many hours of retreading and revision to make a reality. In the latter case, I often take out a Foolscap page and jot down whatever comes to mind in a kind of crazed mind-dump prose. This way I not only remember the revelation, but also the situation it came to life in. I don’t always re-read these notes, but the simple act of giving them space helps me to remember (and sleep easy knowing I at least wrote them somewhere). [As an aside: please write down everything. Carry a notebook. Keep one by the bed. In your bag. In the bathroom. Ideas evaporate quickly.]
“The reader only cares about what he or she experiences on the page. That’s why you must not mistake the progress of your inspiration for the actual progress of the story. The scene that sparked your desire to create fiction may not be the starting point of the story, and the story itself may not even be about what you thought it was about when you wrote the opening.” (p 75)
Those ideas from the night before are not the story. Or even the start of the story. Or even exact moments in the story. I jot them down manically so I can remember the tone and the context and the madness that will build the future story. This, for me, is a new practice. As someone who is a recovering Discovery Writer (someone who does not outline, instead choosing to let inspiration and character lead them into a blank future), I often found that, even in reverse outlining, I was missing the kind of depth and plot needed to make a longer story work. In short fiction, discovery writing worked very well for me. It allowed a strange and mysterious world to emerge (partly because it was strange and mysterious to me too!), but when you start to expand into longer stories - the story elements become more challenging. Things need to be internally consistent. In order to satisfy this discovery practice in my longer work, I’ve been free writing tons of character and scene moments that are pure inspiration. No worry for structure, or consistency, or even character names - just whatever comes out. I dump onto physical paper. This helps me to develop a world, and a handful of people in that world, to then build a properly structured story around and, like the shower moment, this provides a space for inspiration to come through. It’s a meditation.
“You should approach an understanding of story elements not as if you were approaching a puzzle that, once solved, will never need to be solved again, but so you can create something wonderful or deadly or harrowing or tragic or melancholy.” (p. 72)
No matter which genre you are writing in, I highly recommend Jeff VanderMeer’s Wonderbook. It is great for a new or experienced writer. The revised & expanded edition is out now from Abrams Image.
Keep your eyes out for more Books on Writing 101! The 101 series are books that I think are a great place to start if you know nothing about writing and want to get started. Nothing too wild, but still packed with wonderful tips and insight.
Previous post in this series:
Haruki Murakami’s “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”