Customer Reviews
The true craft - and graft - of writing - By: Jim Ashton, 08 Aug 2008 
This book won't write your novel for you. It won't tell you how to get it published. But what it will do is guide new (and not so new) writers through the essentials.
If you have a great idea for a story & are basically literate, this book is a very good way to turn out an excellent book. It guides writers through the basics of plot & character, point of view & setting, & through to those final elements such as rewriting & editing many writers try to avoid. It is thorough & understandable, and, being written by a wide variety of accomplished professionals rather than just one know-it-all, it provides the best advice available from many sources.
It is often partnered with What If?: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers, & for good reason. What If adds valuable exercises to this book, & is worth buying alongside it.
This is not a short-cut to getting published. It is a rigorous manual containing many exercises that while maybe not appealing on first glance, are well worth doing. It is a guide to the true craft - & graft - of the writing process. Ironically, it is increasingly apparent that publishers & their editors have little knowledge of these building blocks of good writing. This book can make sure what you present for publication is as good as it should be; whether editors actually recognise that fact is, unfortunately, beyond the scope of even this terrific book.
Beside the point - By: Lulubeth, 20 May 2008 
I think some reviews of this book are beside the point - it's more of a course-book for people who go to "Creative Writing" courses at uiversity, or ideas for teachers of same rather than a book about how to improve technique. Neither do I have any quibble with its not being a WRITE FOR PROFIT! piece of puff that hopes to fleece naive hopefuls. That said, it's just not a very good course-book. Most of the "ideas for writing" are flat, flaccid or just plain time-wasting stuff for teachers to usein a crisis ("imagine your bedroom or a pair of shoes" twaddle, while Ali Smith's comparative sentence-matching exercises take "pointless" to a new level). It's not a book about what writing might meanin a wider context either. The whole book is beside the point. The best way to get a serious handle on how to write is to read & read as deeply as you can - genre fiction will not teach you much, except what someone else has worked out as their "formula". Writing well is not success-based, & no book can be a 12-step programme. READ.
two thirds of this book is really useful - By: P. L. Barrett, 08 Feb 2008 I bought this book quite a while ago & still dip into it now & again for inspiration. Different writers give their advice, & i have earmarked those chapters written by the writers i found the most inspiring/helpful. There are two or three 'advisers' whose advice is a little superior & somewhat irritating, but this is made up for by those whose advice i have gleaned plenty from. I have recommended this book to several writing friends, & was certainly glad to discover it myself. You WILL find this book useful & an ispiration when you are stuck for where to go nextin your story. If you read this book with 'your story'in mind, you will end up writing down copious notes for ideas...my copy of this book is full of margin notes!! Certainly worth the money.
Not helpful at all - By: E. Flanagan, 11 Jan 2008 This book implies that is is a guide to creative writing. I found it irritating. It's more like a group of people discussing elements of writing from their own particular perspective, with little to no constructive advice.
Yes there are excercises suggested, but the instructions are often badly laid out. There is a certain element of literary 'snobbery' - commercial success appears to be frowned upon by the authors & contributors.
I would not recommend it to anyone who is looking for an introduction to creative writing, especially if their interest liesin popular fiction.
Not actually much use - By: MarkTwain2007, 17 Dec 2007 
Imagine you wanted to learn wood working. But imagine you bought a book full of sentences like, "Wood is as old as the world", or, "To be human is to need wooden furniture...".
You'd feel a little ripped off. You want actual instructions on how to work with wood, not thoughtful aphorisms, no matter how clever.
That's the problem with this book. Need advice on plotting? Well,in the "Plotting & shaping" section you'll read, "We write thingsin order to make sense of the world". That's true, I guess. Even profound. But not a great deal of use. Where's discussion of narrative arcs? Where are real examples of plots taken from real books, showing how it's been donein the past, complete with expert commentary? In short, where's the substance?
There's a lot more exactly like that. This isn't a book that teaches. It suggests & implies. It waves a handin the direction of travel but doesn't give actual directions. Sadly, this is all-too commonin creative writing literature. Authors can be as secretive as magiciansin guarding their techniques & methods. There's a reluctance to closely analyse technique, perhaps for fear of breaking it.
Others reviewers have suggested that this book is "inspiring". That might be true but for that to be the case you'd need to have already learnt the skills this book purports to teach (it is, after all, a "coursebook"). Above all, I keep coming back to the thought that this book teaches its readers to suck eggs... To tread water when you want to learn how to swim.
The book can also be annoyingly patronising & has definite concepts of high & low literature. Of "Bestselling plots", one contributor writes sniffly that they belong to "books soldin dump bins at airports". Thanks for that opinion, but is it helpful? This rather cynical theme runs throughout the book. You're unlikely to find discussion of books by Harold Robbins, or Stephen King, or Frederick Forsyth, or Catherine Cookson (or any other popular author -- the books that people actually buy & enjoy). But you will find mention of Virginia Wolfe. I'd check for more examples like this but the book lacks an index -- another annoyance.
There is some good stuffin this book, & I've given it 3 out of 5 for being so readable & entertaining. But it's perilously close to being a useless frivolity. Reading it is a matter of sifting the silt to find the gold. Worse than that, there's a lot of iron pyrite sprinkledin there,in the form of aphorisms & vague advice that looks valuable, but is actually worthless.
