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|title=Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers

|author=Lawrence Block

|publisher=William Morrow

|date=February 1994

|website=http://www.lawrenceblock.com

|summary=Superb collection of writing advice from an absolute master. A must-read.

}}

If I was going to write a list of authors I admire - well, I wouldn't begin it now. There are so many that I'd still be doing it at the end of November. But if I did take it upon myself to write a list, Lawrence Block would probably be on top of it. Hugely prolific and vastly varied when it comes to thrillers and crime stories, he's someone who seems able to turn his hand to so many different types of novel or short story with excellent results every time. He's created my two favourite crime-solvers, alcoholic ex-cop Matt Scudder and gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, and the contrast between the grittiness of the former series and the cosiness of the latter would place him high on my list of favourites even without his other work. Throw in the comic capers of Evan Tanner, whose sleep-centre was destroyed by shrapnel and now works for a mysterious department going across the world and stirring up trouble, and stamp-collecting assassin Keller, and you've got four excellent series of novels. Then there's the short stories, which feature all of these characters and many others, often rivalling Roald Dahl for darkness and clever plot twists.

To be fair, I've probably read similar advice to that given in those chapters, and some of the others, several times before. It's not so much that Block is dispensing hitherto-unknown wisdom - more the sheer amount of excellent advice given, and the way in which he puts it across. His writing style - similar here to his first-person narration in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series - is so entertaining that it's possibly worth reading even if you have no plans to write anything yourself. (Is there anyone out there in that boat, the day before NaNoWriMo, though?) There are a huge amount of wonderful quotes here - complaining about people congratulating him on self-discipline rather than talent, suggesting that this implies ''that a persistent chimpanzee could match me book for book if he could just sit still long enough and work the space bar with his non-opposable thumb,'' or talking about procrastination. ''Procrastination's had a bad name ever since 1742, when Edward Young called it the thief of time. (He'd have written that line back in 1739, but kept putting it off.)''

The column format makes it easy to dip into and out of as well, always a plus if you think you'll be too busy writing this month to read an entire guide. Highly recommended.

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