I found this book very helpful. As a starting point, understand that this is not a book on the craft of writing superb sentences with excellent grammar. This outlines the broader picture, plot, character development and other concepts. Some readers consider this book encouraging merely a commercial pursuit and not art. Personally, I'm attempting to write a novel that will grab readers and hold their attention. This book fits my goals. As an exercise, I went through some of my favorite books, including a couple of the classics. While the authors might not have sat with Mr. Maass' guidelines in front of them, they did cover nearly all the points he suggests are key.
The book itself. First, the "you can do it, Rah Rah" section required to start this type of book is relatively short and painless. In the book Don Maass takes concepts that are known to all authors and he organizes them well. One of the distinctions about this book is he explains why the concepts are important and he provides guidelines to achieve the desired result. He provides numerous examples, and although I didn't agree with every example, the process of evaluating the examples was part of the learning experience. Each chapter ends with a summary that feels like a checklist.
The book feels a little bit like a "recipe" ie, follow these instructions and use these checklists and you will have a breakout novel. Obviously breakout novel writing can't be that easy as I don't believe Mr. Maass would consider any of his own novels as breakouts. I personally like that recipe / textbook feel and organization, others might find it to feel contrived.
My writing skills increased dramatically from reading this book and I actually use the chapter summary to remind myself to build deeper characters, create conflict etc. An unexpected bonus from reading this book is that my own enjoyment of reading went up as I was able to more fully appreciate the work that goes into a good novel.
I recommend reading the book and challenging your own writing with the concepts. This is the most helpful book on writing that I have read.
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Top reviews from other countries
Amazon Customer
Absolutely an essential read for budding writers
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 5, 2024Maria Schwarzbach
Absolut interessant auch für bereits erfahrene Autoren
Reviewed in Germany on December 18, 2018
