Gorges, Julie A. Next Chapter. I-Form Ink Publishing, 2024.
Reason read: an a reviewer for the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to read really interesting books. This is one such book.
Julie Gorges shares her story of how she started writing for public consumption. Her motto for Next Chapter should be “Just Get Started!” She makes it easy to do just that with all of her tips and suggestions. There is a boatload of information in her book, Next Chapter! Before digging into it, readers should know Gorges includes a section on how to use all of this material. Her sound advice is to not read Next Chapter all at once. You are even encouraged to skip the chapters that mean nothing to you. Just jump right to the information that speaks to you personally. There is wealth of good information such as character development, viewpoints, and dialogue; writing fiction versus nonfiction and when to add subtitles. To bolster the advice Gorges gives you, she also includes quotations from authors like Nancy Ellen Dodd, Sandra Bennett, and Barry Silverstein.
Digging into the how-to information of Next Chapter, I appreciated the section on technology. Knowing all of the device options is helpful, but I wonder how out of date this information will be even a few years from now.
There are some other pieces of advice that I questioned. Do men really need pretty accessories in order to become writers? And while I appreciated Gorges including information about AI, I worried about encouraging budding authors to use it to enhance the quality of one’s writing. I believe AI has the potential to dumb down our abilities to communicate ideas without the help of robots, just like GPS has removed the need to understand how to read a map. Like any how-to book, I would caution to readers to take care to do their own research when looking into getting published. Other information, besides technology, could become outdated very quickly.
Also, as another aside, I would add the advice of keeping a dream journal. Whenever you wake from a particularly vivid dream write down as much detail as you can remember. Include whether it was in color or black and white, touch sensations, sounds heard, smells, emotion experienced. You never know what can fuel a plot twist or prompt the creation of a new character.
Was I meant to be a writer? By Gorges’s barometer, I would say yes, I have fantasized about becoming some kind of writer. I am distracted by ideas and captivated by words. I currently write a blog (duh). I am drawn to bookstores of all kinds and I have tons of notebooks and journals. I was always writing, even as a child. For one his birthdays I gave my father a collection of stories I had written in college. I will return to chapter eight because I have always been told I need to put my story down on paper.
Confessional: I cannot tell you why, but I bristled when Gorges said anyone can write. That is simply not true. It’s nice of her to think that and maybe she meant anyone who can read her book can be a writer, but illiteracy is still a world-wide problem. When Natalie Merchant wrote “Cherry Tree” she was thinking of her grandfather who could barely write more than his name.
Book trivia: this was published in October of 2024.
Setlist: Bobby Rydell, Frankie Avalon, and Fabian.
~*LunaSea*~ 