3 out of 4 stars
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The Life and Lessons of a Young Author by Sunayna Prasad is a non-fiction book in which the author describes her experience in the field of creative writing and publishing. There are eight short chapters and twenty-five pages in the book. It contained several writing and publishing tips, but I will only highlight a few. Readers that want to learn more writing tips are encouraged to read the entire book.
One of the recommendations made by the author is that one should critically decide what genre to write in and what route of publishing to take. Unbiased feedback, preferably from people authors do not have a personal connection with, is also advocated. Sunayna advises authors to build author platforms even before publishing their first books. I have read this piece of advice from several books so there could be some truth in it. The art of reading books written by other authors is encouraged. The author believes that this will help readers understand how other writers apply writing rules to their work and how they execute their stories.
The author, as the title suggests, gives practical advice on the process of writing and publishing, based on her experience and mistakes. I liked and admired the honesty in the narrative. The book is written in simple everyday language that many people can understand with ease. However, I could deduce that the author learned English as a second language from the style of writing.
I understood the author’s account of the experience of editing a manuscript after getting feedback from some readers. It is not easy to critically edit and delete portions of a work which in the writer’s opinion is a masterpiece. I remember designing a very robust research protocol many years ago. It took several meetings with my supervisor and other lecturers to finally get me to realize that some aspects of the proposal needed to be left out!
I enjoyed the book, but I feel as if this book could have been published as a chapter in an anthology written by several writers. A book written by several contributing authors would contain more helpful tips and advice for writers. I noticed a few grammatical errors that another round of professional editing could have resolved. I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars because of the errors I detected. Budding authors will find the tips given in this book very helpful.
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The Life and Lessons of a Young Author
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