Great writers writing how-to-write books is its own genre. These works have a certain tone, which usually leaves me with a faint sense that the author privately believes that writing is an inborn talent descended from the heavens, which you either have or you don't, and if you're reading a how-to-write book then chances are you're in the latter category. But Jeff VanderMeer's Wonderbook is something different. It's accessible and encouraging, and never once paraphrases Hemingway's advice to would-be writers ("First, there must be talent, much talent"). It's both the practical and technical volume that a new writer needs, and a loving introduction to the wild strangeness of speculative fiction.

The book is structured loosely in the order a story is written, with chapters on inspiration, beginnings and endings, narrative design, characterization, worldbuilding, and revision. In real writing, of course, all of these things occur simultaneously and with lots of unpredictable chemical off-gassing, but it's refreshing to see it all arrayed in a neat periodic table. The book is also constantly interrupted by additional and wonderful content, including essays from a slightly astounding list of contributors, a recurring series of adorable little cartoon characters, and large, glossy illustrations. At the back of the book, in the spot usually reserved for glossaries and overlong acknowledgements, VanderMeer has squirreled away some of his most interesting material. The highlights include a dozen or so writing exercises, ranging from rewriting a Nabokov short story to describing a creature called the Last Drink Bird Head, and a lengthy (how else?) interview with George R. R. Martin on the craft of writing. And then, for the kinds of people who watch the Bonus Features on DVDs, the book also comes with a surprisingly helpful website. It's got even more exercises and essays, along with a sample short story with comments from some of the best editors in the field. When you finish Wonderbook and all its assorted extras, you certainly feel accomplished.

While some of VanderMeer's advice is the kind that could benefit authors in any genre, the bulk of the material addresses the risks and rewards of writing speculative fiction. A realist writer might never ask herself how to find the correct balance between familiarity and strangeness. Or how to deliver all the necessary information about an alien society or magical system. Or what stereotypical cultures have already been overdone in the genre ("Warlike People, Honor-Obsessed People, Hive Minds, Crazy Arab-like People, Industrious People, Artsy People, and Amazon Women" [p. 226]). These are not, generally speaking, the concerns of the aspiring hard crime novelist.

Similarly, while much of Wonderbook could benefit writers of all skill levels, it's truly written for earnest beginners. But it doesn't condescend to novices, who may never have been in a creative writing workshop in their lives or heard the terms "half-scene" or "intrusion." Instead, the tone is refreshingly practical and judgment-free. You will not find, for example, the slightly admonitory undertone of many how-to-write books, which declares what a writer is or isn't. Consider Bradbury's famous pronouncement in Zen in the Art of Writing that writing is jumping out of bed and stepping on a landmine. Or Rilke's even more intimidating assertion that true writers must search their souls and confess they'd "have to die if [they] were forbidden to write." A new writer might anxiously pause and consider all the years they've spent not writing but still managing to survive.

In the same breath, it's possible the clinical precision of VanderMeer's advice might sometimes obscure the heady, secret purpose of a how-to-write book: to inspire people to write. To offer them the kind of ringing quotes that will settle into the backs of their brains and ride along with them through every bad draft and first stab, and echo when the writer is losing heart or luck or time. It's that most-quoted scene in Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters when Seymour tells Buddy there are only two questions that will ever matter to a writer: "Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out?" VanderMeer does not much concern himself with a writer's stars; he worries about believable dialogue and thorough worldbuilding and how to structure a plot.

Two things pull Wonderbook back from the edge of the purely mechanical: the contributors' essays, and the illustrations. The list of contributors is the original reason I bought the book, because if Ursula K. Le Guin, Neil Gaiman, Catherynne Valente, John Crowley, Nnedi Okorafor, George R. R. Martin, and Lauren Beukes are handing out writing advice, then I should probably get in line. Their essays were exceptional. Overall, they served to pull the focus away from the details of writing and towards the broader interpretive dance of reading and writing. Desirina Boskovich and Karen Joy Fowler both write about endings, and the strange balance between ambiguity and resolution that makes readers respond to a story. Beukes and Valente both invite would-be authors to step outside their own cultural restrictions. Beukes writes irritably about the valuable work of creating a character unlike yourself ("It's called using your imagination" [p. 193]), while Valente emphasizes the importance of genuine cultural inquiry towards yourself and your fantasy-cultures ("What does everyone know?" [p. 223]). For those fearing that diversity and gender were only addressed in sidebars, be comforted that VanderMeer's nuts-and-bolts writing advice consistently emphasizes the importance of diverse worlds, characters, and perspectives.

But it's the visuals, in the end, that move Wonderbook beyond the merely informative and into the nebulous territory of the inspirational. They are also the aspect of the book that connects most deeply to the genre of speculative fiction. The illustrations are soaringly strange, funny, appalling, wild, and tangled, from the free-texture art of Jeremy Zerfoss to Charles Vess's drawings for A Storm of Swords to full-page reproductions of the Luttrell Psalter. The images are also integral to many of the writing exercises, which saves the exercises from that sheepish, high-school writing prompt feeling. Even without the exercises, something about studying writing while surrounded by strange beasts and murky worlds makes the entire book more valuable.

It's easy to be cynical about books that teach us how to write. Maybe they're just money-making schemes, or a chance for excellent authors to talk about how excellent they are, or maybe they're simply doomed efforts, because how can something as marvelous and intuitive and alien as writing actually be taught? But Wonderbook isn't trying to teach us, so much as give us all the tools and tricks and encouragement we’ll need to practice writing on our own. As Vonnegut said in defense of creative writing classes, "The primary benefit of practicing any art, whether well or badly, is that it enables one's soul to grow." In that, Wonderbook has succeeded beautifully.

Alix E. Harrow works as a history curriculum writer and regularly posts speculative fiction reviews at Fantasy Literature and her personal blog. She lives in a romantically dilapidated farmhouse with her partner in Kentucky.