Customer Reviews

Description & Setting: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting a Believable World of People, Places, and Events (Write Great Fiction)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Like the other "Write Great Fiction" books, this one focuses on the elements listed on the title, description and setting. While the criticisms some others have had are sound, this is by no means a terrible book, and certainly it is not as awful as some would make it out to be. As for the criticism that there is "nothing new" in the book, that's easy. The author makes the assumption (as he should, seeing as how every other good author who has ever written a non-fiction work on any given subject would do the same) that the reader knows nothing, or little about how to write descriptive passages but wants to know more, so having "no new information" is an empty criticism. He isn't writing his book for people who already know the concepts, he is writing for those who don't know but want to learn them. The "nothing is new" criticism is like a math teacher being critical towards a new math book that comes out since it offers "nothing new." Obviously the math teacher already knows the concepts that are covered in the math book.

But I have spent more than enough time on that. This book will teach you how to describe aspects the reader can see, hear, feel, touch and smell, thus bringing them into the story. It will teach you how little description is too little, and how much is too much. It will teach you how to get the reader to paint a mental picture of the world you create in your story. It will teach you how to apply the other aspects of writing fiction, such as plot, dialogue and character development and how they relate to description. It will teach you how to create a single sentence that is chock full of information that the reader needs to know to understand the context of your story. That is what the author intended, that is what he does, and that is why this book is worth the money.

After starting the journey of becoming a published author years ago, I've come across many "self-help" books on how to write a novel, and my experience is that 90% of them are a load of rubbish. This one fortunately for you and me, is not.

If you're serious about becoming a writer and you've already begun the journey, then this is one for the collection. I'm not positive that you will come back to it afterwards like Solutions for Writers by Sol Stein or your English Grammar reference book, but it will help you write/tell your story better.

Specifically it gives you examples of how to:
1. Show vs Tell (a common problem with most new authors)
2. Description (description for literature vs description for popular fiction)
3. Characters
4. Timing
5. Grammar (a very brief section that you'll probably already know if you've been writing for some time now)

There is other useful info as well, but these are just a few.

Lastly, unlike most authors in this genre, he does not solely reference his own books. He uses a wide range of writers encompassing literature as well as popular modern fiction.

As a creative writing teacher of an elementary gifted education class, I am always searching for ideas and suggestions that will prove helpful in assisting my students to become good writers. I'm so delighted to have found a book that actually offers clear techniques and specific exercises for my students. The exercises at the end of each chapter have proven to be helpful.
Reading is one of my greatest pleasures and it is truly the rich and colorful description of the setting that invites me into and to become a part of the book. Thank you, Ron, for such an informative resource and a clearer understanding of how to create what I consider to be one of the most important areas of the book, if not the most important. For me, the setting is definitely a "read or not to read decision."

The other volumes in this series have all been excellent, but careless editing and some wooden writing weaken this book's advice. Spelling errors (Wurthering Heights, racquet for racket) and weak prose (Rozelle likes to split infinitives with adverbs) weaken credibility, and some of the advice is questionable. Rozelle favors using adverbs to clarify prose instead of finding strong verbs and specific nouns. He also tends to use older books for examples, many at least 15-20 years old. This is especially true when he discusses genre fiction in superficial terms. Some of the book is irrelevant, too, discussing characterization without relating it to setting or description. I'd suggest Monica Wood's book on Description instead of this one.

In this book you will learn what you should do but precious little about how to do it. I took two things away from this book. One, you should use good description. And two, use a journal to write down your sensory observations. The rest of the book's content range from the superficial to the obvious to the questionable. This is the first writing book I've read that extolled the virtues of using adverbs as a writing tool. This from a book on description.
Any writers out there looking for a good book on creating the words for good fiction should look to Monica Wood's "Description". It's one of the best books on writing, period, that I have yet read. 5 stars for that one.

Decription & Setting teaches you to take two dimensional words on paper and turn them into a three dimensional world for your readers to explore. All the great dialogue, plot twists, and character development in the world can't save a character standing in front of a white backdrop. The book encourages writers to become masters at setting the stage. Description & Setting prods writers to keep their work as vivid as possible and offers helpful hints on how to incorporate sensory information into text. A great read and an ever better resource, this book and the Write Great Fiction series are a great tool for any writer.

Although this volume is part of the excellent "Write Great Fiction" series, it's really for those who wish to write mediocre fiction. Grab the other volumes (Characters, Emotion and Viewpoint; Plot and Structure), but skip this one. It's riddled with spelling mistakes, inaccurate quotes and is downright self-contradictory. On top of it all, the suggestions are, at times, poor and there seem to be sections drawn from high-school english lessons just to fill space. It's a struggle to get through.

As a high school teacher of advanced English classes, I found Rozelle's book helpful as well as interesting. His advice about using adverbs to strengthen the action allows the writer to fine tune it by showing, not just telling. His use of a combination of classic and modern literature as examples gives a complete spectrum. One of the most important aspects of the book is Rozelle's instruction of character description and how the setting helps to form the character. I plan to use the book in my classes next year.

Chock full of massive amounts of advice. A nice feature is an appendix with a listing of each chapter and all the points from it. So you can skim this appendix and see the entire book in about a dozen pages, there is about one page per chapter.

I have been reading through many, many books in preparation for writing my own. This one is well worth the trouble of purchasing and reading. I keep it handy as I write.

I really enjoyed the easy flow and examples illustrated throughout this work. Ron Rozelle breaks down in 12 chapters all the tools necessary to write effective settings. This book gives me a great advantage over my classmates who rely simply on our instructor's advice.