rosepetals1984's review
4.0
Review to come. Really nice albeit brief look at structure and plotting a novel. Whitcomb uses several examples from her own writing as well as external resources.
jenniferworrell's review
2.0
Good, but it seems like one of the first in the Writer's Digest series, like it wasn't too sure about it but went ahead anyway.
It seems the author wasn't too experienced herself when writing it. She can't explain why a few of her own writing exercises work. There a great many excerpts used as examples, which I love, but she often says things such as "this is tricky and you should maybe think twice before using it". I love that she's showing us all sorts of examples of writing, but if this is a book on first drafts, thus for novices, that comes across as daunting. Someone might wonder why they should bother trying, even if they're talented.
There are also a few references that I found odd. I had this book out from the library so long I'd forgotten who'd written it. Then an excerpt was used as an example and was attributed to Laura Whitcomb. Later I realized that was the author, but the excerpt was lumped in with the rest, with no comment like "from my story, X..."
However, it's worth a look because of the excerpts used as examples. This way, she shows different types of reflection, POV, etc., and it's a nice little guide to have for that reason.
It seems the author wasn't too experienced herself when writing it. She can't explain why a few of her own writing exercises work. There a great many excerpts used as examples, which I love, but she often says things such as "this is tricky and you should maybe think twice before using it". I love that she's showing us all sorts of examples of writing, but if this is a book on first drafts, thus for novices, that comes across as daunting. Someone might wonder why they should bother trying, even if they're talented.
There are also a few references that I found odd. I had this book out from the library so long I'd forgotten who'd written it. Then an excerpt was used as an example and was attributed to Laura Whitcomb. Later I realized that was the author, but the excerpt was lumped in with the rest, with no comment like "from my story, X..."
However, it's worth a look because of the excerpts used as examples. This way, she shows different types of reflection, POV, etc., and it's a nice little guide to have for that reason.
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