Pamela Painter

Really wonderful writing. After vowing to dole out these stories to myself, one at a time, like rich and coveted treats, I devoured the book in one swift, fantastic, glorious feast. Fortunately, they can be enjoyed again and again. The stories are full of troubled relationships, losses, longings, and sometimes recoveries. I know as much about these characters as I do some of my friends. My favorites stories here were “Reading in His Wake,” “Grief” (which had me holding my breath show more through the whole thing), and the title story, “Ways to Spend the Night.” But I really enjoyed all of them. Painter’s dialogue is always pitch perfect. The stories are full of concrete and finely tuned details, a specificity that anchors us in a real and believable world and always leave me wondering “how does she know all this stuff?” I suspect the answer is a lifetime of close observation, attention, and research. And she really knows how to do endings! Pam Painter is a master of the form. show less

Different from most writing books, this is - basically - nothing but writing exercises, intended to help with particular parts of writing. I like the layout, organised roughly into categories, and it’s intended to be something to dip into, for inspiration and ideas. I thought I’d work through this one and began, six months ago, by doing some of the exercises. However I didn't feel able to make the time and abandoned it for a while, then recently read the rest of the book, looking at the show more exercises and thinking that I might get back to them one day.

There are lots of good points made in the book to illustrate what the exercises are about. The writing prompts encourage the reader to be creative and without necessarily leading to anything longer. There are exercises for honing stories that exist already, for picking out features of other people’s writing, and for trying new techniques. In many of the sections there examples given of student responses to the exercises, done in writing workshops.

The authors are themselves writing coaches as well as writers, and I thought this was an excellent resource, even though I didn't make full use of it. I hope to return to it, however, and dip into it in the future.

Recommended. show less

I haven’t finished this in its entirety, but it will remain a great resource on my shelf for getting me out of a rut, considering problems with my writing, generating fresh material. I can open it to any page and be handed some thoughtful concepts, useful exercises, and inspiring quotes from established authors.

I haven’t finished this in its entirety, but it will remain a great resource on my shelf for getting me out of a rut, considering problems with my writing, generating fresh material. I can open it to any page and be handed some thoughtful concepts, useful exercises, and inspiring quotes from established authors.