Bird By Bird Book Report

Bird by bird, well that sounds like word by word, and that’s exactly what this book is about. Anne Lamott is trying to teach future writers, including those just taking an English course, that writing is a process that we can only take word by word. Anne Lamott tries to connect to the reader, on a personal level, by sharing personal experiences and life stories to help the reader understand her main point. The book is composed of five parts, and each part has sections within them to better break down the main topic of each part. Within each part, you will see examples derived from Anne Lamott own life and experiences to better help the reader understand the main point. Lamott uses weird and wacky examples to help her point, but they are successful

Lamott, now sixty-two years old, published Bird by Bird on September 28, 1994. Lamott uses her own life experiences to help connect to the reader on a personal level, but not only does Lamott use experiences to connect to the reader but to also give examples to better explain her main points. Lamott uses wacky and weird titles such as “Broccoli” but these titles serve a purpose, such as Broccoli serving as a metaphor for your intuition. Lamott does not censor herself and is honest with the reader. Lamott uses language that is easily understandable and feels like she is talking to you as if you were an equal rather than talking down on

All these key features help make the foundation for a great story, but it our job as writers to fill in the gaps and make these aspects pop and be unique. A plot cannot create the characters, but the characters can reveal the plot. Lamott uses a Polaroid as an example of how we cannot create the plot first, we must first set the frame, take the picture, and let everything develop along the way, once completed the plot is revealed. Characters make a huge impact to the reader because the main character is someone we can connect to, understand, but at the same time we want them to suffer to make the story interesting. If the main character just flies by obstacles without an issue then the story becomes bland, but if they suffer then it makes us more interested and continue reading to see how they resolve the main conflict. Dialogue serves as a break for the reader, but if there is bad dialogue then it bores us and we cannot connect to those talking. Set design is best thought as actors getting ready while the author is setting the stage for their performance. With all these aspects, we can create a great story and have our readers at the edge of their