What do you think?
Rate this book
How to Write Everything by David Quantick
How To Write Everything is the ultimate writer’s handbook. It tells you about every aspect of writing, from having an idea to getting the idea out into the world (and getting paid for it too). It covers everything from journalism to screen-writing, from speeches to sketches, from sitcoms to novels. With thirty years' experience as an award-winning script-writer, journalist, author and broadcaster David Quantick is ideally suited, as a writer, to write this definitive writer's guide to writing... everything.
Paperback
First published October 23, 2014
12 people are currently reading
146 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
March 18, 2021
A short and concise book on the nuts and bolts of making(or not making) a living by writing -- aka writing everything. David Quantick is a British writer who is experienced in many areas, from journalism to sitcom scripts, from writing for radio shows to BAFTA awards ceremonies. And in cases where he doesn't have enough expertise, he interviews other writers with appropriate background.
A lot of useful information and personal experience is packed into this short and anything but dry book, which makes it a perfect read for young people who consider becoming a writer, as well as a pleasant distraction for no longer young individuals who still toy with the idea.
"And now it's time to quit stalling, get out there and do some writing, and there it is, my final piece of advice -- write!"
A lot of useful information and personal experience is packed into this short and anything but dry book, which makes it a perfect read for young people who consider becoming a writer, as well as a pleasant distraction for no longer young individuals who still toy with the idea.
"And now it's time to quit stalling, get out there and do some writing, and there it is, my final piece of advice -- write!"
April 17, 2021
I bought in an Audible sale as I like .
It's a a practical guide about how to become a professional writer and, had I aspired to do that, I conclude there are lots of helpful tips. As it is I found it fairly interesting.
Each chapter covers a different type of writing e.g journalism, plays, poetry, fiction etc.
3/5
It's a a practical guide about how to become a professional writer and, had I aspired to do that, I conclude there are lots of helpful tips. As it is I found it fairly interesting.
Each chapter covers a different type of writing e.g journalism, plays, poetry, fiction etc.
3/5
February 17, 2015
(click to tumblr for post with hyperlink support)
“This is the book David Quantick’s publishers have been waiting for.� - Rob Brydon
What is it that makes a million people write? What drives an office worker with a niche idea to self-publish? What makes an established television comedy writer decide to publish a book about how to write? Self-appointed “writer of everything� David Quantick’s book How to Write Everything is too practical a volume to get bogged down in such mysteries of existence. As he says in Chapter One ‘What is writing?�, “Writing doesn’t have to be the soul-ripping, heart-sucking process we are led to believe it can be. You can be a glib writer and be just as good as the writers who can only dribble out a word an hour.� Well, David Quantick is a glib writer. “It’s words; you just have to get them down,� says Quantick, “This is obvious advice, like most advice � but it’s true.�
This might sound too glib to be helpful, but Quantick’s practical advice, that of a seasoned veteran, lugubriously ironic and mordant, is quite an antidote to the over-serious prescriptive approaches of most writing manuals. He has a laugh. If he can seem like he’s writing for himself, it’s not that he is � he’s just writing for his fee. To write, you have to write. But who is writing? Who indeed.
According to the Independent Book Publisher’s Association, “self-published titles have dwarfed traditionally published works nearly 2:1.� I would hazard that e-publishing has pushed this ratio exponentially beyond that. According to the same piece, 81% of Americans (sic) state that they have a book in them. That’s potentially 200 million books. How many will be written, let alone published, even self-published? And who would read them?
If this demands the question “Why write anything?� then, for the love of God, why write “everything�? Most unpublished or self-published writers are in a process of becoming, so a book about writing everything might appeal to those lacking a defined portfolio. A cynical publisher might think so, might perhaps even commission an equally cynical comedy writer to deliver the pages.
Quantick is realistic about the problems a writer will encounter both in the craft and especially in the wider world of trying to sell one’s work. He is astute in devoting a great deal of page-time to the economics of writing. There is a huge amount of writing going on, but if we were to estimate the payment being made per word for the whole output of humanity, we’d probably find a negative figure (once you exclude your JK Rowlings and Dan Browns, whose income per word is freakishly off the curve). Most writers pay out more than they earn, much of it presumably in writing manuals and two-day residential courses in the Dordogne, and this doesn’t even take into account the cost to the economy of a lot of people daydreaming and researching on the internet when they ought to be making spreadsheets or cheese or whatever it is people do for a living.
The bigger you get, the bigger you get. These things, following economies of scale, have always escalated, in any sphere. Success depends as much on the seemingly arbitrary vicissitudes of recognition as on the inherent quality of one’s work. Aesthetes, especially unrecognised ones, will always claim that anything that sells does so because it panders to popular prejudices or sentimentality or some apparently worthless connection that’s more a function of the way creative industries foster an apparently arbitrarily chosen few who are gifted publicity and sustenance, while others measure success purely in worldly financial terms. A 2014 survey revealed that most writers earn less than £600 a year.
That’s not to say that there aren’t those word-of-mouth heroes - isn’t Fifty Shades a key example? Though that of course had to have a publishing and publicity machine behind it to really become a phenomenon, rather than ‘merely� a cult hit.
There is, however, an argument that these super-sized models don’t work any more. Whether attributable to the internet or not, we find much more diffuseness, more niche unappeal, across all avenues of cultural experience. If they ever did, families don’t gather together to watch The Cosby Show or Noel’s House Party any more. Instead we’re all gathered round individual iPads watching different things on YouTube. TV is instructive. The series finale of Cheers gathered 93.5 million viewers, its spinoff Frasier some 33 million, The Cosby Show 44.4 million. The daddy of them all is the finale of M*A*S*H, with its 125 million viewers. This makes M*A*S*H the moon landing of sitcoms, the Olympic Opening Ceremony of comedy. Enviable figures, but are they likely to be repeated? Today a cable show is a “hit� if it gets 100,000 viewers. In cinema it’s even worse, and middle-to-big film-makers like John Waters and David Lynch can’t get budgets to make their films any more.
In spite of this seeming unavailability of viewers, Quantick includes not one but two chapters on writing comedy, as well as one on films, and a further one on formatting scripts, which, he reveals is more important than you’d think. This is because it is incredibly unlikely that anyone will actually turn over the front page and read your script in the first place, and if the text is set in some radical intuitive way, they will know straight off that the contents are unlikely to be saleable.
While Quantick is practically-minded in this way, writing manuals seem more often to be motivational rather than technically useful, though motivation is of course a key factor in successful writing. Obviously, you have to be motivated to write. First though, it seems, you must be motivated to read all the motivational books. This compound motivation seems rather tiring.
Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ lists among its “Best books about writingâ€� some 456 titles. The self-improvement industry, of which the books about writing arguably form a part, is said to be worth $12bn a year. So what is that makes a million people write? Perhaps we should look back to Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose essay “Self-Relianceâ€� forms an insistence on staunch individualism. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself,â€� he says, and for many there is no more solitary experience than writing. Perhaps they write to commune with their inner Emerson.
Quantick, on the other hand, particularly in his chapters on comedy, is eager to stress what a collaborative effort writing really is. His chapter on writing poetry, surely the most individualistic mode of expression imaginable, is a dialogue with Dan O’Brien, in which the poet gamely and sympathetically critiques Quantick’s efforts at verse. The subtext is that to get good at writing involves some practical feedback. The sur-text elsewhere will tell you that you’re just plain going to take a kicking most of the time. In script-writing he therefore advises flexibility, and in pitching scripts or ideas to just keep trying “until you find a friend,� again emphasising working the creative ecosystem as much as actually developing your craft.
In his chapters on writing comedy, the subject on which he is an authority (having written for everybody) he discusses a range of matters more interesting than strictly useful, without quite veering into complete anecdote. Regarding collaboration, he’s good on the team approach in the US versus the British duos. The difference is centrally one of budget of course. He’s sympathetic to the team approach. We in Britain tend to think gives rise to a recognisably ‘writing-by-committee� feel, but British audiences have always seemed to gravitate to comedy with a quirk that usually comes from the mania of an individual writer. Perhaps this classic British weirdness is too much for the present climate, for he advises the comedy writer to form a duo where possible. The classic writing duo is Jimmy Perry and David Croft, creators of Dad’s Army. Their secret was that one was great at being funny and one great at telling a story. The thing about writing comedy is you have to do all of the things that regular drama does - plot, character, development, interest, theme - but you have to do that at the same time as being funny. This is why it’s so hard, and why being funny is not on its own enough.
Quantick also analyses the different archetypes of sitcoms and comedy generally. As I say, he’s really very interesting on comedy, which makes it highly amusing that this makes for huge cop-outs in his chapters on less familiar matters. So much for “writing everything�. Bless ‘im, he enlists help, and the chapters on writing plays, films, novels, and poetry, take the form of interviews with people who know what they’re doing.
Quantick’s Afterword returns to intimate territory � it’s concerned with getting paid. He tells you how to do it, and is at pains to stress “always remember: it’s your money. You don’t owe them. They owe you.� In his launch for this book at the LRB bookshop, he stressed this at greater length: get paid. Get paid. If you’re writing a blog, fine, that’s a personal expression or whatever, but if you want to take it seriously, he advises, don’t write for free. Get paid. Or write with a view to getting paid.
There is a slight disconnect here, the classic Employment Paradox: to get the job you need experience, but to get the experience you need the job. So how do you start? Particularly when the funding models for music and literature and information are moving toward certain free models. No-one wants to pay. It’s not information that wants to be free, it’s people that expect to be able to get it for free. Sara Sheridan has put this tendency into broader terms: “If we don’t value the people who inspire us (and money is one mark of that), what kind of culture are we building?�
At this point in the history of writing, with perpetual revolution in hand, and battle lines drawn about the economies of the means of production and dissemination of culture, we might well ask ourselves just that - whether, at some point in the future, there will actually be anyone left to do the writing. Will it just be the posh white boys, the Ed Sheerans and James Blunts, dominating discourse, with everyone else turned into incoherent anarchist cranks railing unregarded on street corners?
Given the numbers - of people writing, of people reading - given the undeniable appetite for books, comedy, plays (maybe not plays), television and film, poetry (maybe not poetry) - and given the money that someone somewhere must be making - it seems there will never be a shortage of writing being written� or, for that matter, of books about writing. The question is, will the writing be any good?
“This is the book David Quantick’s publishers have been waiting for.� - Rob Brydon
What is it that makes a million people write? What drives an office worker with a niche idea to self-publish? What makes an established television comedy writer decide to publish a book about how to write? Self-appointed “writer of everything� David Quantick’s book How to Write Everything is too practical a volume to get bogged down in such mysteries of existence. As he says in Chapter One ‘What is writing?�, “Writing doesn’t have to be the soul-ripping, heart-sucking process we are led to believe it can be. You can be a glib writer and be just as good as the writers who can only dribble out a word an hour.� Well, David Quantick is a glib writer. “It’s words; you just have to get them down,� says Quantick, “This is obvious advice, like most advice � but it’s true.�
This might sound too glib to be helpful, but Quantick’s practical advice, that of a seasoned veteran, lugubriously ironic and mordant, is quite an antidote to the over-serious prescriptive approaches of most writing manuals. He has a laugh. If he can seem like he’s writing for himself, it’s not that he is � he’s just writing for his fee. To write, you have to write. But who is writing? Who indeed.
According to the Independent Book Publisher’s Association, “self-published titles have dwarfed traditionally published works nearly 2:1.� I would hazard that e-publishing has pushed this ratio exponentially beyond that. According to the same piece, 81% of Americans (sic) state that they have a book in them. That’s potentially 200 million books. How many will be written, let alone published, even self-published? And who would read them?
If this demands the question “Why write anything?� then, for the love of God, why write “everything�? Most unpublished or self-published writers are in a process of becoming, so a book about writing everything might appeal to those lacking a defined portfolio. A cynical publisher might think so, might perhaps even commission an equally cynical comedy writer to deliver the pages.
Quantick is realistic about the problems a writer will encounter both in the craft and especially in the wider world of trying to sell one’s work. He is astute in devoting a great deal of page-time to the economics of writing. There is a huge amount of writing going on, but if we were to estimate the payment being made per word for the whole output of humanity, we’d probably find a negative figure (once you exclude your JK Rowlings and Dan Browns, whose income per word is freakishly off the curve). Most writers pay out more than they earn, much of it presumably in writing manuals and two-day residential courses in the Dordogne, and this doesn’t even take into account the cost to the economy of a lot of people daydreaming and researching on the internet when they ought to be making spreadsheets or cheese or whatever it is people do for a living.
The bigger you get, the bigger you get. These things, following economies of scale, have always escalated, in any sphere. Success depends as much on the seemingly arbitrary vicissitudes of recognition as on the inherent quality of one’s work. Aesthetes, especially unrecognised ones, will always claim that anything that sells does so because it panders to popular prejudices or sentimentality or some apparently worthless connection that’s more a function of the way creative industries foster an apparently arbitrarily chosen few who are gifted publicity and sustenance, while others measure success purely in worldly financial terms. A 2014 survey revealed that most writers earn less than £600 a year.
That’s not to say that there aren’t those word-of-mouth heroes - isn’t Fifty Shades a key example? Though that of course had to have a publishing and publicity machine behind it to really become a phenomenon, rather than ‘merely� a cult hit.
There is, however, an argument that these super-sized models don’t work any more. Whether attributable to the internet or not, we find much more diffuseness, more niche unappeal, across all avenues of cultural experience. If they ever did, families don’t gather together to watch The Cosby Show or Noel’s House Party any more. Instead we’re all gathered round individual iPads watching different things on YouTube. TV is instructive. The series finale of Cheers gathered 93.5 million viewers, its spinoff Frasier some 33 million, The Cosby Show 44.4 million. The daddy of them all is the finale of M*A*S*H, with its 125 million viewers. This makes M*A*S*H the moon landing of sitcoms, the Olympic Opening Ceremony of comedy. Enviable figures, but are they likely to be repeated? Today a cable show is a “hit� if it gets 100,000 viewers. In cinema it’s even worse, and middle-to-big film-makers like John Waters and David Lynch can’t get budgets to make their films any more.
In spite of this seeming unavailability of viewers, Quantick includes not one but two chapters on writing comedy, as well as one on films, and a further one on formatting scripts, which, he reveals is more important than you’d think. This is because it is incredibly unlikely that anyone will actually turn over the front page and read your script in the first place, and if the text is set in some radical intuitive way, they will know straight off that the contents are unlikely to be saleable.
While Quantick is practically-minded in this way, writing manuals seem more often to be motivational rather than technically useful, though motivation is of course a key factor in successful writing. Obviously, you have to be motivated to write. First though, it seems, you must be motivated to read all the motivational books. This compound motivation seems rather tiring.
Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ lists among its “Best books about writingâ€� some 456 titles. The self-improvement industry, of which the books about writing arguably form a part, is said to be worth $12bn a year. So what is that makes a million people write? Perhaps we should look back to Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose essay “Self-Relianceâ€� forms an insistence on staunch individualism. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself,â€� he says, and for many there is no more solitary experience than writing. Perhaps they write to commune with their inner Emerson.
Quantick, on the other hand, particularly in his chapters on comedy, is eager to stress what a collaborative effort writing really is. His chapter on writing poetry, surely the most individualistic mode of expression imaginable, is a dialogue with Dan O’Brien, in which the poet gamely and sympathetically critiques Quantick’s efforts at verse. The subtext is that to get good at writing involves some practical feedback. The sur-text elsewhere will tell you that you’re just plain going to take a kicking most of the time. In script-writing he therefore advises flexibility, and in pitching scripts or ideas to just keep trying “until you find a friend,� again emphasising working the creative ecosystem as much as actually developing your craft.
In his chapters on writing comedy, the subject on which he is an authority (having written for everybody) he discusses a range of matters more interesting than strictly useful, without quite veering into complete anecdote. Regarding collaboration, he’s good on the team approach in the US versus the British duos. The difference is centrally one of budget of course. He’s sympathetic to the team approach. We in Britain tend to think gives rise to a recognisably ‘writing-by-committee� feel, but British audiences have always seemed to gravitate to comedy with a quirk that usually comes from the mania of an individual writer. Perhaps this classic British weirdness is too much for the present climate, for he advises the comedy writer to form a duo where possible. The classic writing duo is Jimmy Perry and David Croft, creators of Dad’s Army. Their secret was that one was great at being funny and one great at telling a story. The thing about writing comedy is you have to do all of the things that regular drama does - plot, character, development, interest, theme - but you have to do that at the same time as being funny. This is why it’s so hard, and why being funny is not on its own enough.
Quantick also analyses the different archetypes of sitcoms and comedy generally. As I say, he’s really very interesting on comedy, which makes it highly amusing that this makes for huge cop-outs in his chapters on less familiar matters. So much for “writing everything�. Bless ‘im, he enlists help, and the chapters on writing plays, films, novels, and poetry, take the form of interviews with people who know what they’re doing.
Quantick’s Afterword returns to intimate territory � it’s concerned with getting paid. He tells you how to do it, and is at pains to stress “always remember: it’s your money. You don’t owe them. They owe you.� In his launch for this book at the LRB bookshop, he stressed this at greater length: get paid. Get paid. If you’re writing a blog, fine, that’s a personal expression or whatever, but if you want to take it seriously, he advises, don’t write for free. Get paid. Or write with a view to getting paid.
There is a slight disconnect here, the classic Employment Paradox: to get the job you need experience, but to get the experience you need the job. So how do you start? Particularly when the funding models for music and literature and information are moving toward certain free models. No-one wants to pay. It’s not information that wants to be free, it’s people that expect to be able to get it for free. Sara Sheridan has put this tendency into broader terms: “If we don’t value the people who inspire us (and money is one mark of that), what kind of culture are we building?�
At this point in the history of writing, with perpetual revolution in hand, and battle lines drawn about the economies of the means of production and dissemination of culture, we might well ask ourselves just that - whether, at some point in the future, there will actually be anyone left to do the writing. Will it just be the posh white boys, the Ed Sheerans and James Blunts, dominating discourse, with everyone else turned into incoherent anarchist cranks railing unregarded on street corners?
Given the numbers - of people writing, of people reading - given the undeniable appetite for books, comedy, plays (maybe not plays), television and film, poetry (maybe not poetry) - and given the money that someone somewhere must be making - it seems there will never be a shortage of writing being written� or, for that matter, of books about writing. The question is, will the writing be any good?
April 12, 2025
I searched for a good book on writing in the literary section of the library.
This book caught my attention, actually I was looking for something focused on fiction writing but this was a book I never knew I needed.
The author delivers versatile writing advice from his experience and also with interviews of other writers.
Everything from novels, TV scripts, sitcoms, movie scripts, journalism, and comedy David presented writing tips with his own humour touch.
How to generate ideas? Yeah it is a complicated process but it was conveyed well. The inspiration plays a major role in it.
The complexities in coming up with original ideas and how publishers and productions prefer something similar to previous success was explained.
Challenges in writing comedy was highlighted. Yeah for comedy we have to focus more on writing lines that are funny.
Things like science behind sitcoms, How TV scripts and movie scripts work and their connection with production, tailoring scripts for movies are given.
If you have some spark on writing, then you must definitely try this book, which will feed your spark.
This book caught my attention, actually I was looking for something focused on fiction writing but this was a book I never knew I needed.
The author delivers versatile writing advice from his experience and also with interviews of other writers.
Everything from novels, TV scripts, sitcoms, movie scripts, journalism, and comedy David presented writing tips with his own humour touch.
How to generate ideas? Yeah it is a complicated process but it was conveyed well. The inspiration plays a major role in it.
The complexities in coming up with original ideas and how publishers and productions prefer something similar to previous success was explained.
Challenges in writing comedy was highlighted. Yeah for comedy we have to focus more on writing lines that are funny.
Things like science behind sitcoms, How TV scripts and movie scripts work and their connection with production, tailoring scripts for movies are given.
If you have some spark on writing, then you must definitely try this book, which will feed your spark.
February 8, 2020
Nice book! Straight to the point advice that I found refreshing and devoid of all the typical psychological fluff which typically fills a book like this.
It is also a very brief book and only the vaguest of introduction to the different writing formats, but the author does refer to other texts for more detail.
Spoiler: You don't really learn how to write - just that if you want to write - do it...
It is also a very brief book and only the vaguest of introduction to the different writing formats, but the author does refer to other texts for more detail.
Spoiler: You don't really learn how to write - just that if you want to write - do it...
February 1, 2022
This is a how-to on many different types of writing by someone who has been involved in a really wide variety of outlets. It’s a good overview, not too complex and he attempts to keep it light-hearted all the way through. I didn’t particularly warm to his humour, and it was more of a practical guide than an inspirational one, but it did exactly what it said it would.
August 31, 2020
There are hundreds of writing guides out there. I have read dozens (it's a sort of hobby). Listening to Quantick's well (self-)narrated book, I tried to figure what would make me recommend this over all the others. I guess it would be that unlike most writing guides, which are often written for aspiring novelists, this book covers many genres, if superficially. For comedy, screenplay, and theatre writers there might be interesting insights here, and it is always fascinating to hear from professionals. Otherwise, too short, often arrogant-sounding (if not meaning to be), and the humour feels forced.
July 22, 2017
A fun title bit is it really possible to tell people how to write everything? No, and David Quantick does not, in any practical sense, attempt to.
Not that he doesn't know a lot about writing. He started out as a rock reviewer and has gone on to write screenplays, comedy scripts, novels, speeches � and he's won an Emmy (for his work on Veep). In this short book he has chapters on ideas and where they come from, books, comedy, plays, poetry and more. It has a lot of sound advice and tips. For example: 'An audience doesn't need to know from the start who the characters are or why what is happening to them is happening. But we do need to want to know what happens next.'
While the book will probably not change your life as a writer, it is enjoyable. It's wise and witty, and the author is good company.
Not that he doesn't know a lot about writing. He started out as a rock reviewer and has gone on to write screenplays, comedy scripts, novels, speeches � and he's won an Emmy (for his work on Veep). In this short book he has chapters on ideas and where they come from, books, comedy, plays, poetry and more. It has a lot of sound advice and tips. For example: 'An audience doesn't need to know from the start who the characters are or why what is happening to them is happening. But we do need to want to know what happens next.'
While the book will probably not change your life as a writer, it is enjoyable. It's wise and witty, and the author is good company.
August 13, 2020
This was recommended by a friend, so I thought I'd give it a go as an audiobook.
Thoroughly enjoyed listening to this. Packed full of interesting and useful information, enlightening anecdotes, and a few jokes. The message is ultimately serious, you want to be a writer? You have to write.
I have to be honest, when I saw it was by David Quantick that name didn't mean anything to me (Apologies - but it's true, I'm simply not very good with names). But the second I started listening I knew exactly who DQ is and honestly I was more engaged for that knowledge, having enjoyed a fair amount of his work.
He's absolutely right about the having to write bit too. Which is what I am now going to go do - but it's the not so fun part today - it's the editing to be faced.
Would highly recommend this read.
Thoroughly enjoyed listening to this. Packed full of interesting and useful information, enlightening anecdotes, and a few jokes. The message is ultimately serious, you want to be a writer? You have to write.
I have to be honest, when I saw it was by David Quantick that name didn't mean anything to me (Apologies - but it's true, I'm simply not very good with names). But the second I started listening I knew exactly who DQ is and honestly I was more engaged for that knowledge, having enjoyed a fair amount of his work.
He's absolutely right about the having to write bit too. Which is what I am now going to go do - but it's the not so fun part today - it's the editing to be faced.
Would highly recommend this read.
January 14, 2024
Unlike most books about writing, this book isn’t about ideas and where to get them. It doesn’t tell you to go for a walk and smell leaves, it doesn’t give you vague prompts such as “write about a time when you felt bad�. What it does do, is give a down-to-earth introduction to the actual job of being a writer. The realistic nature of being paid to write or perhaps be funny. Where most books tell you to be original, this book tells you that original is unlikely to get published. It’s a jug of ice water being poured over you to wake you out of the writer’s stupor of feeling god-like induced by “you’re a writer because you write� books. Excellent.
January 12, 2021
3.5 stars
As a writer, I will come back to this book. I appreciate David’s honesty, light hearted ness, and genuine advice. I give it less stars because I wish there had been more that I think he could have offered- advice on editing full manuscripts, nonfiction writing, and perhaps balancing a regular job with free lance writing. That being said, this book is a fantastic starter to the world of writing, particularly for script writers.
As a writer, I will come back to this book. I appreciate David’s honesty, light hearted ness, and genuine advice. I give it less stars because I wish there had been more that I think he could have offered- advice on editing full manuscripts, nonfiction writing, and perhaps balancing a regular job with free lance writing. That being said, this book is a fantastic starter to the world of writing, particularly for script writers.
May 30, 2023
David Quantick has the absolute right to make a book that attempts to cover all different mediums, and gets darn near close.
Some areas are definitely covered in greater depth than others (the chapter on plays and movies is much more extensive than the one on stand up, for example), but it is really a wonderful encouragement & push for all aspiring writers. If this is really what you want to do, just start writing. Simple as that.
Some areas are definitely covered in greater depth than others (the chapter on plays and movies is much more extensive than the one on stand up, for example), but it is really a wonderful encouragement & push for all aspiring writers. If this is really what you want to do, just start writing. Simple as that.
February 9, 2020
Listened on Audible.
This was a fun, light read. I like the British humour but honestly the substance is a bit lost on me, since I don't have an over-arching desire to write poems or scripts or many of the other things detailed here.
But for others this could be useful.
The most important tip to writing, from all that I have gathered, it just to write.
This was a fun, light read. I like the British humour but honestly the substance is a bit lost on me, since I don't have an over-arching desire to write poems or scripts or many of the other things detailed here.
But for others this could be useful.
The most important tip to writing, from all that I have gathered, it just to write.
January 1, 2021
A bit of an overview of different writing professions from film script writers to poets. I’m not entirely sure who the target audience for this is as it seemed incredibly broad rather than offering much actual advice. May have just been me but seemed quite dismissive of people who write for fun or self publish...
March 9, 2020
Although on the shorter side, this frank and honest book manages to escape the boredom of other guide books. David Quantick is a humorous writer, and gets extra marks for narrating the audiobook himself - keeping the book true to it's witty nature.
December 2, 2020
A decent read for writers. If you like British humor and treat it like a conversation rather than a practical guide, I'm sure you'll appreciate it. A good overview of the different paths you can follow should you want to pursue a career in writing.
June 30, 2024
This book is not so much about how to write than giving an overview about the different areas of writing, such as screenwriting (comedy, mostly), plays, journalism, and poetry. It’s ok but you won’t learn much about the writing process. Though this would have been interesting.
August 29, 2020
3.5 stars
November 12, 2020
Read quickly through this - best bit of advice was to just write. Hence me writing this review. It was perhaps a bit to focussed on TV scripts and comedy rather than children's books.
December 20, 2020
DNF'd due to transphobia. It was a struggle anyway.
November 12, 2021
Its fine. Though dedicated more towards writers and people interested in that... Fine audiobook though, easy to follow.
December 16, 2023
Typically Quantick, with plenty of useful advice and an amazing eclecticism based on personal experience. His Blagger's Guide to... series for Radio 2 needs to be repeated soon.
Want to read
October 30, 2024Source: library nr Easy Hotel, Oxford.
August 3, 2021
Even though I don’t enjoy audiobooks, I found some parts of this one fascinating - especially the chapter on Journalism. In general, the book is great at motivating the lazy writer that lives inside you.
October 9, 2017
A breezy look at writing for a living. This is not a text book but a collection of tips that aim to help the aspiring writer. There are more than a few nuggets of wisdom from someone who has done his fair share of writing work - a bit over enthusiastic about journalism and not overly enthusiastic about theatre. Basically the advice boils down to - write, don't sell yourself short, don't be a twat, learn the rules of engagement, and write some more preferably every day.
What I liked - some good advice from a successful writer, albeit obvious but still helpful
What I disliked - opinionated - the style gets a bit much at points
What I liked - some good advice from a successful writer, albeit obvious but still helpful
What I disliked - opinionated - the style gets a bit much at points
October 20, 2015
This is a funny humorous book that delves into the idea of how to write everything...not really a 'heres how to do your job for you' book more a refreshing look into the different cogs and wheels within the thick dust cloud that faces anyone who wants to write.
written by David Quantick who has written nearly everything from tv shows to books, radio shows and films. He offers his funny look at the contents of the writing dustcloud
A fantastic read by a equally fantastic author
written by David Quantick who has written nearly everything from tv shows to books, radio shows and films. He offers his funny look at the contents of the writing dustcloud
A fantastic read by a equally fantastic author
February 3, 2016
This was a good book but not quite what I thought it would be. It's more about how to be a writer than how to actually write. I was looking for more of a guide around how to construct my writing (for example; "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them") but this wasn't that kind of book. It didn't discuss blogs at all, so doesn't cover everything, but if you're looking to write for TV or film then this is a good starting point.
November 1, 2014
Enjoyed it. This isn't really a 'How To' book, and it definitely isn't a "Yes, you can!" style of inspirational book. It's more of an "Of course you can! Now bloody get on with it!" kind of writing guide. And all the better for it.
September 1, 2016
Great advice for anyone who wants to write.
A thoroughly enjoyable read, with lots of food for thought moments. Always good to get the thoughts of those who have done it and got the tee shirt.
Recommended for any wannabe writers like me.
A thoroughly enjoyable read, with lots of food for thought moments. Always good to get the thoughts of those who have done it and got the tee shirt.
Recommended for any wannabe writers like me.
October 31, 2015
Funny and informative
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.