What's the Good Word?
A Facebook friend, Cynthia Bertelsen (a real person who I’ve actually met), and I have been corresponding for a few years, reading each other’s books—sometimes editing, sometimes reviewing—which is to say, doing whatever is needed to enable each other’s writing addictions.
Cindy recently posted the cover of a little book (Dictionary of Fine Distinctions) on her Facebook page, specifically drawing my attention to it. She clearly recognizes my “taste” (or lack thereof) in literature:
In the spirit of what is known (at least, in scholarly circles) as “self-referential consistency,” Burnstein opens his book by clarifying the distinctions between introductions, forewords, and prefaces.
Prefaces deal with incidental topics like the book’s origin, scope, and limits, while introductions tend to kick off the subject matter proper and at greater length and generally feel more essential to the work.
Page numbers are a good giveaway: Standing outside the main text, prefaces usually feature lowercase Roman numerals (i, ii, iii) while introductions inaugurate the Arabic ones (1,2,3) that continue for the remainder of the book.
As you can tell, this is a preface.
Forewords, finally, are easier to spot, as they’ve been written by someone else—usually a well-known personage whose name is advertised on the cover to lend the book credibility. The most auxiliary of all, forewords come before prefaces, which, in turn, come before introductions.
Please don't hold the lack of a foreword against me.
Blurbs, I assume, should be considered a subset of forewords (as they are generally less literary than mercantile in nature). They appear on the outside of the cover (or the first pages of the frontmatter, so are even more venal than forewords. I’ve written a few blurbs in my time—in fact, just this week, I wrote this for Larry Millman’s new book (Drinking with God):
OMG! Millman’s little book is simply divine; it is a heaven-sent blessing for atheists, unbelievers, and heretics… you know, anyone who still has a fully-functional funny bone.
BTW, I’ve also begged (mostly without success) for blurbs from some of my better-known writing friends (hint hint, wink wink).
I wrote the next little bit for one of my books (How to Write a Great Book), and I see—now, thanks to Mr. Burnstein—that it was none of the things its title might suggest; it’s definitely more tongue-in-cheek “preface” than “foreword.”
Foreword (or Forward, or Forewarned)
There’s an old proverb: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems look like nails.” The toolbags of writers may contain other tools—but their hammer is writing itself. So it shouldn’t be a surprise to learn that great writers have spent vast amounts of time, and ink, writing about the problem that fascinates them the most: writing itself. Invariably, they wrestle with, and use their best writerly skills to show off not what they've learned about the nature of truth—but how to write about it.
It’s fascinating, but tell us nothing about how they actually do the deed.
On the other hand, every writer’s “how-to” book promises to reveal the secrets successful writers use to create great books. What they never explain, however, is why they, themselves, haven’t made use of those much-vaunted techniques to write their own great books. Have you ever seen any of these how-to books on lists of “great books of the world” or “books you must read before you die”? Have you noticed that the authors of such “how-to” books are not generally recognized as great authors, themselves?
Why do you suppose that is?
Perhaps it’s because those books attempt to teach beginning writers the things they already learned in school—or would have, had they not been otherwise occupied in the passing of embarrassingly puerile notes, carving their initials onto their desks, or straining to imitate rude intestinal noises. Such books serve up lessons in grammar, structure, research techniques, vocabulary—exactly the sort of things in the direction of which great writers have always thumbed their noses (or flashed their metaphorical, or literal, buttocks). Gore Vidal, who knew whereof he spoke, put it succinctly: “Teaching has ruined more American novelists than drink.”
Let’s face it—despite what these books (and our teachers) preach, no one ever created something truly new by using the methods of the past. This might be a good time to digress into our usual rant about the qualitative differences between true entrepreneurs and typical MBAs.
Then again, maybe not.
Regretfully putting any and all digressions aside—no matter how illuminating they might be—and making, I might add, a great effort to get back on the subject at hand, which is an introduction to this little book’s approach to the writing of great books (and, additionally, putting a merciful end to this runaway run-on sentence), it comes down to this: I will examine the methods used by authors of great books to see how they really did it. After all, if we want to do something ourselves, do we really care what others used for inspiration?
No, we want to know how they actually did it. Perhaps that’s what Jack Kerouac meant when he wrote, “It ain’t whatcha write, it’s the way atcha write it.”
Then again, maybe not.
Whether (or not) the insights provided herein are of any use in creating our own great books is entirely up to us. They may be entirely irrelevant. As life (and especially the creative life) comes with no guarantees, this little book promises to be equally stingy with its promises. You only get what you pay for—and, sometimes, not even that.
Paid subscribers to these substack pages get access to complete editions of two of my novellas. Noirvella is a modern story of revenge, told in the style of film noir. Unbelievable is a kind of rom-com that forms around a pompous guy who is conceited, misinformed, and undeservedly successful. Both books are sold by Amazon, but paid subscribers get to read them for free. Also, substack pages (older than eight months) automatically slip behind a paywall—where only paid subscribers can read them. If you’re interested in reading any of them, you can subscribe (giving you free access to them), or buy them in book form should you prefer the feel of a physical book. Meanwhile, it is easy to become a paying subscriber (just like supporting your favorite NPR station). It’s entirely optional, and—even if you choose not to do so—you’ll still get my regular substack posts—and I’ll still be happy to have you as a reader.