The quote from the front of the book says it all: "How to build short stories and novels that do not sag, fizzle or trail off in scraps of frustrated revision - and how to rescue stories that do."



Topics entertainingly presented include:

Is your idea worth turning into a story?

Beginnings.

Including background without boring your readers.

How to use melodrama, imagery, viewpoints and other tools.

Plots and subplots.

Endings.

From Chapter 8 - Patterns, mirrors and echoes:

"Getting conscious control of imagery is one of the very hardest and most delightful chores a writer tackles: it requires you to make friends with words and use them with a diamond-cutter's precision."

Read it again.

Write something.

That it is possible, and fun, to write a story that someone might want to read.

Uses words "with a diamond-cutter's precision".

Rather than giving you a series of formulas or exercises, it is showing you in a very readable way, that you can use the tools of a writer to skilfully create your own stories.

The author recommends watching the movie "The Empire Strikes Back" several times to study parallel plotlines, mirrors and echoes.

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Created Nov 26, 2002 at 12:33am • Submit your own review...