Writing with the Master

How One of the World’s Bestselling Authors Fixed My Book and Changed My Life

De: Tony Vanderwarker

Narrado por: Fred Stella

With seven unpublished novels wasting away on his hard drive, Tony Vanderwarker is astonished when John Grisham offers to take him under his wing and teach him the secrets of thriller writing. The beginning and the end are easy,” Grisham tells him. It’s the three hundred pages in the middle that’s the hard part.”

To ensure his plot doesn’t run out of gas, Grisham puts Tony though his outline process. Tony does one, and then Grisham asks for another and another and another. As they work together, Grisham reveals the techniques that have helped him create compelling bestsellers for more than two decades—for instance, “You’ve got to hook your reader in the first forty pages or you’ll lose them.” After a year of constructing outlines, Grisham finally gives Tony the go-ahead to start writing.

Writing with the Master immerses the reader in the creative process as Tony struggles to produce a successful thriller. It’s a roller coaster ride, sometimes hilarious, and often full of ups and downs. Grisham’s critiques and margin notes to Tony reveal his nimble imagination and plot development genius. For Grisham fans, Vanderwarker’s memoir pulls back the curtain on his writing secrets, and for aspiring writers, it’s a master class in thriller writing.

In the end, Tony resolves to take Grisham’s teachings to heart and eventually decides to write what he thinks he was meant to: A book about the creative process and his incredible two years working with John Grisham.

©2014 Tony Vanderwarker (P)2013 Audible Inc.

This is NOT a how-to book. It's a good story!

This book is to writing as The Karate Kid is to karate; a tale of one person's journey in pursuit of a passion; the challenges, the successes, and snippets of daily life thrown to give the main character more dimension.

This is not a how-to book. If you want to learn how to be a writer, there are plenty of books out there. This is a story about how, well, it's in the title: How one of the world's best authors fixed his book and changed his life.

Tony does a great job, really exposing his own ego in the process. And it's a huge ego. At one point, he spends about 20 or 30 minutes reading the latest version of his story, with cut-ins, congratulating himself and picking out the best suit for his appearance on the tonight show.

And the manuscript he's narrating isn't that great at the time, and makes a lot of common mistakes. At that point, I almost gave up on the book, thinking that the previous reviewer was correct; this book is nothing more than a companion piece to a half-rate novel.

But when he begins to narrate Grisham's critique, and describe how he feels like he's been drop-kicked in the face, I absolutely identified with him. I've spent a lot of nights spewing out what I thought would be the greatest thing since Carrie or the Shining, and my own mentor tore it to shreds. I felt the exact same way; denial, bargaining, surrender, and eventually acceptance, but only after deciding I'd never ever try to write again.

I can't think of another book about the writing process that details what Tony's put in here, specifically the parts outside of typing words on a keyboard; (building plot, revisions, taking criticism, more revisions, etc). The helpful points about writing are useful, but overall, it's just a great story about one person's journey through writing a novel.

IF the novel in question went on to become a million-seller, this would be a different book about someone who found the magic handshake to success. But the fact that (prior to the epilogue) he hadn't published his novel makes the story all the more interesting to me; makes it more accessible.

So I'll give this book 4 stars. The narration wasn't fantastic, it was a person who's better suited for non-fiction, which is probably another part that's confusing to listeners.

entertaining read

initially, I had expected this book to share writing advice through the lens of the author as a budding writer learning from his friend who had reached the full bloom of a successfully published author with a large fan base. creative way to teach writing through telling his own success and failure. excellent humblebragging. entertaining and at the same time frustrating. while it was nice to be led by example rather than the author boring the reader with long lists of to do, this book was hard to follow because it read like a memoir with a mystery. the mystery being the reader must find the story behind the story. was the story all the people in his life and how they interacted with the author? was the story how and what the author learned from his author friend? I think perhaps the story is left for each reader to find on their own.

Not your average book about writing

I love books about the craft of writing, I have shelves full of them both physical and virtual. This book stands out as a different perspective on the writers craft, the true story of writing a novel with the assistance of a professional author as your mentor. While much can be learned from this book, it's not be confused with the How-To style of writing manual. Entertaining and informative, it is, in my opinion well worth the credit and is one of my personal favorites.

Writing with the Master

I was captivated by the author's writing journey. He showed how a person's writing game could be pock-full of writing divots and still be under par and win.

Loved it!!!

This was really enjoyable to listen to and it actually included some great lessons. A must listen!