Plot (Writer's Workshop) [Import] [Paperback]

ANSEN DIBELL (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: CONSTABLE AND ROBINSON (1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1854870696
• ISBN-13: 978-1854870698
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highest Recommendation, January 26, 2001

By 

David Rowell "www.TheTravelInsider.info" (Redmond, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Elements of Fiction Writing - Plot (Paperback)

The simple one word title of this book - "Plot" - and its slim 170 pages do not adequately hint at the wealth of guidance that is packed into every one of its pages. This is the best book on the subject of writing that I've yet purchased.

If you're like me - a hopeful author-to-be, then you're probably, also like me, casting around for some desperately needed advice and guidance on how to turn the winning story that you know you have into a published and popular novel. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a magic formula that can be revealed, and the challenges in trying to define what is as much a creative art as a pseudo-science means that many "how to write a book" texts promise a very great deal more than they deliver.

By happy contrast, Ansen Dibell's book delivers a very great deal more than it promises. It not only gives extremely easy to follow, hard-hitting advice on plot construction and development, but it offers extra "bonus" material on just about every other aspect of authorship. Unlike some books which end up in a morass of generalities, she talks in easily understood specifics, and also uses some excellent examples of published material, while avoiding the temptation that other authors have suffered from of padding the book with many pages of unnecessary example.

To summarise, this is an excellent book that discusses most aspects of writing a novel, with Plot as its central unifying subject. It has my highest recommendation and I urge you to add it to your own collection accordingly.

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Way Too Convoluted. Nothing New In Here, February 27, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Elements of Fiction Writing - Plot (Paperback)

I've read some 30 books on story craft and this is easily one of the least useful of the bunch. This author doesn't believe in Outlines but this book could have definitely benefitted from one. Not only is the information put forth in a confusing manner, the author compounds this by attempting such things as trying to make up new terminology for age old story elements (apparently in an attempt to sound original and to convince you she has some pearls of knowledge that no one else has thought of).

If you're looking for a useful source of story elements, this isn't the book. "Story" by McKee "The Writer's Journey" by Vogler and "Building Better Plots" by Kernen are FAR better, and more importantly, they are straight forward and easy to use in regards to your own work.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Start For Plot-Newbies, April 15, 2005

By 

Christopher Kokoski "Book Author" (New Albany, Indiana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Elements of Fiction Writing - Plot (Paperback)

Look, the book isn't Shakespere, but for someone like me who smiled and nodded--and that's about it--when I head the term, "plot," there is good information to glean. However, even after finishing the book, I didn't feel like a master of plotting. Two of the best books on plots that I've read are "Scene and Structure," and the more recent, "Plot and Structure."