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joshuanovalis's review against another edition
Strikes a beautiful balance between a systematized methodology toward narrative craft and the unpredictable nature of most memorable artistry.
kellylynnthomas's review against another edition
3.0
Again, Burroway has good information but she's kind of obnoxious and condescending and it can make the good info hard to swallow. This book will at least be better for improving your craft than any of the shitty commercial books on writing you can get at a regular book store, and older editions are cheap on Amazon or Half.com.
moberle's review
informative
medium-paced
4.25
Wow! A book with actual good advice on how to write fiction! Wish I had actually bought it instead of doing my University's stupid online-access thing.
nerodia2348's review against another edition
4.0
There were some ideas about writing in this book I didn't agree with and some points during which I felt the author was being a bit bossy. I'm not a fan of restrictions on creativity. Still a useful read, though. There are lots of writing prompts and recommended reading throughout. Plenty to get people thinking outside the box in their writing process.
zoet's review against another edition
5.0
Loved all the stories and the really substantial suggestions on fiction technique!
likecymbeline's review against another edition
My creative writing program assigned this as the only "essential textbook," although it is no longer available new and no one is there to hold us accountable for reading it. I took my sister's copy, asked if it was okay if I marked it up a bit as I went, and there are a lot of places underlined in pencil, sometimes more than once. It's a very practical look at scenes, at dialogue, things you might think of unconsciously or believe fall into place 'naturally,' but it takes a step back and asks the writer to take seriously the craft of writing on a conscious and deliberate level. I don't know how it fares to other writing guides--most I've read are the kind that say the trick to writing is writing--and you can see that it's purpose is for a creative writing class (especially short fiction), but I'll be going back to those underlined passages as I work through my own writing.
futurememory's review against another edition
4.0
For my Writing the Short Story class.
A really great introduction to writing elements, and some of the short stories in here were superb. There was a lot of sound, excellent advice, and each chapter built on fundamentals from the previous to make it all a smooth and really thought-provoking experience. It's an expensive book, so I can't recommend it to every writer, but for a workshop-style class, this textbook is pitch-perfect.
A really great introduction to writing elements, and some of the short stories in here were superb. There was a lot of sound, excellent advice, and each chapter built on fundamentals from the previous to make it all a smooth and really thought-provoking experience. It's an expensive book, so I can't recommend it to every writer, but for a workshop-style class, this textbook is pitch-perfect.
ejpass's review against another edition
3.0
3/5 stars
Recommended for people who like: fiction workshopping, writing advice
I had to read this for my CRW 207 class, which is a class on workshopping fiction, mainly short stories.
Some of the bare-bones advice was good. I liked the bits that talked about dialogue and that suggested stepping away from a story before editing/revising it, as the break would give you time to have 'fresh eyes' when you go back to it. Admittedly, a lot of the advice was also the standard advice you'd get from a writing advice book: add detail, flesh out character, find your narrative POV, etc. The book definitely got repetitive and boring.
One of the writers, I'm not sure which one, is a rather pretentious sort of person too. They'll be going along with their advice and then out of the blue make a comment that's just so pompous it's off-putting. Also, there was an example in one of the character chapters where the author (and I like to think it's the same author) gave one of their own pieces as an example--"big boned, lanky, melon-breasted, her best feature [...] oblivious to her eccentricity" (134-35)--that I also found to be off-putting. It comes back to this idea that male authors have a fascination with the breasts of their female characters, and of course with the idea that said female characters are unable to identify their beauty or, in this case, eccentricities (also, is he aware how heavy that would be? Especially on someone with a 'lanky' figure).
Some of the stories provided were pretty good. I really liked 'The Red Fox Fur Coat,' 'Fiesta, 1980,' 'Sea Faries,' 'Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter,' and 'Keith.' Overall, I actually think I liked the short stories more than I liked the advice portion of the book. Some of the other short stories felt as if they were written for the specific purpose of proving a point made in the book. Others felt as though they were written by amateurs.
In general, despite the standard 'Recommended for...' portion of the review, I really wouldn't recommend this book.
Recommended for people who like: fiction workshopping, writing advice
I had to read this for my CRW 207 class, which is a class on workshopping fiction, mainly short stories.
Some of the bare-bones advice was good. I liked the bits that talked about dialogue and that suggested stepping away from a story before editing/revising it, as the break would give you time to have 'fresh eyes' when you go back to it. Admittedly, a lot of the advice was also the standard advice you'd get from a writing advice book: add detail, flesh out character, find your narrative POV, etc. The book definitely got repetitive and boring.
One of the writers, I'm not sure which one, is a rather pretentious sort of person too. They'll be going along with their advice and then out of the blue make a comment that's just so pompous it's off-putting. Also, there was an example in one of the character chapters where the author (and I like to think it's the same author) gave one of their own pieces as an example--"big boned, lanky, melon-breasted, her best feature [...] oblivious to her eccentricity" (134-35)--that I also found to be off-putting. It comes back to this idea that male authors have a fascination with the breasts of their female characters, and of course with the idea that said female characters are unable to identify their beauty or, in this case, eccentricities (also, is he aware how heavy that would be? Especially on someone with a 'lanky' figure).
Some of the stories provided were pretty good. I really liked 'The Red Fox Fur Coat,' 'Fiesta, 1980,' 'Sea Faries,' 'Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter,' and 'Keith.' Overall, I actually think I liked the short stories more than I liked the advice portion of the book. Some of the other short stories felt as if they were written for the specific purpose of proving a point made in the book. Others felt as though they were written by amateurs.
In general, despite the standard 'Recommended for...' portion of the review, I really wouldn't recommend this book.