A review by abigcoffeedragon
The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction: 6 Steps to Writing and Publishing Your Bestseller! by Philip Athans, R.A. Salvatore

5.0

OK - I have read a few books, and this book has it all laid out - there are no guides for outlining and structuring - there are no comments about 3 act vs 4 act or sequences - this is about the writing of Fantasy and Science Fiction - they are going with the tools that you already know the basics of writing - interestingly enough, there were a few sections within this book, that had I read it 2 weeks ago, I would have saved myself a few hours of needless world building - one of my favorite sections in the book is when it has a sample paragraph and it illustrates how changes to the world affect the story - it starts with a basic fiction version, and evolves into a more extreme fantasy version - YMMV on your opinion of the changes, but it showed me how I was working too hard at making my world too different and how uncomfortable it would be to read, when Elf and Dwarf were renamed, and Height and Weight had a new system - it is the kind of book that I wish that I had read before I made my failed attempts all those times before - I have world builders disease to be sure, but now that I have seen what happens when you let your building run away with you, I feel that I will be able to start and finish a much better and believable piece of work -

My only negative thing is that I felt the book did not provide enough examples, but what was included was very well illustrated - this will not show you how to turn your idea into a book without work on your part, but it does show good examples of what to do and what not to do, and a starting point is all that you can get for Fantasy and Science fiction, as everyone's ending point can be miles away from everyone else's examples.