No Character Limit is a collection of poetry and short prose, interspersed with writing tips and authors’ notes, from the WriteGirl project.
WriteGirl offers teenage girls mentorship and other assistance to encourage them to write, write, and keep writing. This book is an assortment of the results, a look inside the hearts and minds of more than a hundred teenage girls and their mentors.
Naturally, there is a great deal of angst, but there’s also far more than that. The writings run the gamut of emotions from lighthearted mischief to quiet solemnity to absolute heartbreak. The topics cover pretty much everything – everything from a set of haikus on the Tet Offensive (which will haunt you, be warned) to an effort to bribe the writer’s muse with treats that include cracked hard-boiled eggs and a pre-warmed bed, from the tensions of difficult family relationships and life changes to the pleasures of waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, even a vivid image of paper books emerging from a drowned Kindle like wetted sponges coming to life. The book is interspersed with writing tips, strategies, and exercises designed to help motivate and train a budding writer (such as, for example, writing an entire poem based on a randomly-generated word, or deliberately writing a story in five sentences or less).
As one might expect, the works are extremely variable in quality, some far better than others. No doubt, most of it will be classed as mere “juvenilia” when these authors’ adult works are anthologized. However, none of it is less than heartfelt, and none of it is trivial or meaningless. There is immense value, especially for a young writer, to see that other people can and do throw their hearts onto the page fearlessly (or fearfully, just as long as they do it regardless). And the running thread of advice, suggestions and help will provide useful support and encouragement for any new author, especially a shy teenage girl wondering whether she really could produce anything good or worthwhile. If you have a daughter, niece or sister who wants to be a writer, professionally or just to express herself in her own words, this book is certain to be a remarkably useful resource.
Reviewed by Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader