Aspects of a Writer Project: The Writing Life Plan

Book Reviews: Reading & Writing

As an MFA student, it’s hard not to feel like publications are everything. If you want to teach Creative Writing at a university, you need a book deal. To land a book deal, you (usually) need to publish first in magazines. And, unless those outlets read anonymously, you also need to appear credible to their staff, many of whom look for a record of prior publications in your cover letter. All this can make the publication process for writers feel like an endless loop with no clear signs indicating where to start. One place to start? The book review.

If you enrolled in the MFA to develop your creative writing and are anxious about your lack of publications, you might consider writing book reviews. Scratch that. Even if you’re entering your MFA program with numerous publications, I still suggest you consider writing book reviews, and I’ve listed three reasons why below. These reasons probably work even if you are not enrolled in an MFA program but want to jumpstart your writing life or build some publication credits.

1. It will make you a better a writer.


You know how frustrating it is when someone says they’re a writer just like you? Maybe they have all these stories in their head, and they just need to write them down. But writing is not the same thing as transcribing. We don’t know what we are going to write until we are writing or have written it. Our finished work often turns out differently from how we initially conceived it. Sometimes this disparity between what we imagine and what we actually write can lead us to exciting new avenues we hadn’t previously considered. Other times, it can be disheartening. We see that something is off, but it’s not always easy to figure out what. Book reviews can help you figure out what’s off and how to revise.

If you read a novel, you might be able say it was good or bad based on your personal taste, but if you want to argue whether it was effective or powerful, you need to articulate what it was trying to achieve and then identify the steps it did or did not take to achieve it. For example, maybe you didn’t like the Wizard of Oz because you don’t like lions. That is a personal review you can post on Goodreads or Amazon to warn all the other lion-haters out there. But, if you want to publish a book review as a piece of literary criticism, editors will expect critical substance to your argument, something like: In the Wizard of Oz, the Cowardly Lion overcomes his namesake cowardice before enough time is spent developing his motivation, which makes the change feel sudden and abrupt. (To be clear, this is not an authentic reflection of my feelings toward Wizard of Oz, which I have not read in a long time.) This quick example demonstrates how a book review requires you to consider the “how” and “why” of your opinion, not just “what” your opinion is.

Such careful analysis trains you to see how a piece of writing is constructed, which can have a direct benefit on your own work. To return to the Wizard of Oz example, if I wrote that negative review on character motivation, when I sit down to work on my own novel, I would keep in mind how important motivation is to develop. Conversely, if I wrote a review that praised the Wizard of Oz, I could apply the techniques that made it successful in my own manuscript in an effort to produce a similar effect. Learning from example and cultivating a mindset based on writerly reading has cumulative effects for one’s own writing.

2. It will make you a better literary citizen.


While publications can go a long way toward building one’s credibility as a writer, it’s important to remember they alone do not define you. A big part of conceptualizing oneself as a writer is discovering a place within the literary world, and that means establishing relationships with other writers, readers, editors—the list goes on. Again, beginning this process can feel intimidating, which is why book reviews can be useful. They require no previous connections (and in fact, many editors require no personal connections between author and reviewer), and yet, reviews can put you in conversation with a writer you may have never otherwise read. The writer will (more than likely) be very appreciative of the careful attention you are giving their work and may even reach out to the reviewer, which could lead to other opportunities.

Book reviews do more than widen your reading and build your writerly connections; they provide you with a platform to elevate other writers. When it comes to the critical and commercial success of a work, book reviews have influence, and you can use that influence to direct the attention where you believe it is most deserved. In other words, a book review is a way to shape contemporary literary culture and to be part of the conversation about what matters in literature.

3. It will build your publication record.


Now that we’ve established that publications aren’t everything, we can get into how book reviews are publications and establish a publication history. Publishers and authors need their books reviewed, and if you email a press to request an ARC (advanced reading copy) for an upcoming release (which you can discover through the publisher’s online catalog), they will likely say yes. And then they send you the pre-print copy of the book for free. Sometimes, you can even review an older title, as some outlets specifically seek out reviews of books that deserve more press than they received.

After you request an ARC or once you have your book in hand, research outlets that have published reviews on similar titles. If the outlet accepts unsolicited reviews, they will post their submission guidelines on their website, which will tell you whether they prefer to see pitches or fully developed pieces. Although you may need to submit to more than one outlet, these guidelines are helpful to consider before you draft your piece because outlets can vary drastically in their expectations for word count and tone.

Book reviews are hard, time-consuming, and receive relatively little recognition for the amount of labor they require. So why write them? Because all that effort doesn’t disappear. That attentive reading and putting into words your thoughts about how the book works becomes part of your writerly thinking. A book review isn’t an end in itself so much as it is a way to build the next stages of your writing career.

And yes, some outlets pay you for book reviews.

For more on how to write book reviews, check out the Writer’s Digest Article “The Benefits of Writing Book Reviews.”

Article by Sam Risak


Book Review Project

Select a book to review; it must be published within the last year. Track down the title, author, and press and get instructor approval, and then contact the press to request a review copy. Work ahead so that you don’t have to purchase a copy, and consider forthcoming titles too.

This is not a literature paper; this is not a personal response paper. It’s a critique geared toward readers interested in the genre. If you’re unfamiliar with book reviews, look at examples online at outlets like Boxcar Poetry Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, LA Review of Books, and New York Times. You should also read “Forms of Enthusiasm” online at The Kenyon Review.

•    Your book review must be typed, double-spaced, paginated, and stapled. Your name and email address should appear in the upper-right corner of the header. The title, author, publisher, and year of publication should appear at the beginning of the review, flush left.
•    The review must be 500-700 words. You can adjust the length after grading if the publication to which you want to submit requires a different length.
•    The review should put the book into the context of contemporary literature and the art and craft of the genre. In other words, this is a real book review that focuses on why the book is worth reading and how the book works.

Questions to consider as you read the book with an eye to reviewing. These questions are not an outline for a review but, rather, a guide to reading the book as a writer and reviewer.
Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0


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