Customer Reviews

Writing Fiction: An Introduction to the Craft

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Why has this book received no [other] reviews on Amazon? Perhaps because it is from an Australian writer / Australian publisher? In any event, what this proves to me is what I have suspected for some time: sometimes, you should not attribute a great deal of credibility to the quality (number of stars awarded) or the quantity of Amazon reviews, or whether or not Amazon reviews even exist for the book in question. I stumbled across this book at my local library, while looking for other books on writing fiction. Note that I am reviewing the 2001 extensively revised edition of this book.

This is one of the most thoughtful and most thorough books I have found on the core craft of writing fiction - an amazingly complete reference in just over 200 pages! Example: Point of View - where other writing books might devote several paragraphs or maybe one page to POV, this book devotes an entire twenty-plus page chapter to it!

Table of Contents: Authors Note, 1. Becoming a Writer, 2. What is Fiction?, 3. Ideas for Stories and Novels, 4. Character, 5. Dialogue, 6. Point of View, 7. Plot, 8. Planning, 9. Structure, 10. Setting, 11. Writing the Short Story, 12. Writing the Novel, 13. The Words on the Page, 14. Troubleshooting, Further Reading, Sources.

If you are a fiction writer and you are struggling to complete or revise a draft of your novel or short story, the chapter on troubleshooting alone may be worth its weight in gold. Get this book if you can find it. Google the author's name (Garry Disher) if you want more background or credentials.