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

List Price: $16.99 Discount Price: $8.79

Customer Reviews:

The Budding Author [Posted on 2007-07-26]
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.

Cornflakes. [Posted on 2008-02-17]
I read the book twice. I considered maybe my wandering mind was from fatigue. The same thing happened with the second reading, after a good night's sleep. Ron's instruction is neither helpful or interesting. It isnt stimulating.

What it is, is a recipe minus the measurements for the ingredients.

There are no EUREKA! moments in the book. It's basic cornflakes for $18 a box.

Very Informative [Posted on 2008-03-19]
This book covers from A to Z on writing descriptive scenes, and more. Besides the nuts and bolts, it provides many great ideas above and beyond what I had expected. If you're thinking about writing fiction this an excellent prerequisite for you to read before you begin writing a page. It helped me tremendously in the wordsmithing required to "paint a picture" for the reader, from the most intricate details, to the, what not to do's." It's worth every minute. Very good to keep for reference as well.

Good book [Posted on 2008-06-28]
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.

Absolute, must have! [Posted on 2008-08-13]
There are many words I could use to say how critically important this book is to aspiring writers. Buy it!!! It will more than pay for itself.

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