Rating: 
Summary: A terrific handbook for the fledgling fiction writer
Review: As both a fiction writer and a teacher of fiction writing (at Yale) I have found this wonderful book to be the best single source for ideas about the craft of fiction. For readers of fiction, too, this book can provide really useful insights. There is gold on just about every page.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: Great definitions. Easy reading. Perceptive. One of the very best books about the CRAFT of writing.
Rating: 
Summary: How did this guy get a book deal?
Review: Hey, if this guy can do it, you too can get published. That's about the only thing I learned from this book. This rambling, disjointed, poorly-organized guide on how to write is really no help at all.
Rating:
Summary: Great little book
Review: I like the way this guy gets right to the point. There's no "filler" in this book. He simply says what he wants to say and moves on to the next subject. The stuff he says is extremely helpful. It is making me a better reader, as well as a better writer. As I read this book I began applying the subjects I read to my writing and noticed improvements in the style and focus of the work.
Rating:
Summary: For My Money the Best Book on Writing Ever Written
Review: If you have to read one book on writing, pick Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular. It matters not if you are an aspiring fiction writer or craft journalistic feature stories, you will savor the time spent with Rust Hills book. This is a practical writing guide. It explains in an understandable fashion all the techniques of fiction - from Character and Action, Foreshadowing and Suspense to Irony and Point of View in a simple and useable fashion. Using experience cultivated over more than 20 years as the Feature Editor of Esquire Magazine, Hills organizes the information in an ingenious fashion. Each chapter not only explains, but also employs the particular technique to demonstrate how it works. Hills amplifies his thoughts with insightful comments on many of the enduring theorists and practitioners of the craft. My only regret is that it is easier to read about the techniques that to translate them into working stories.
Rating:
Summary: For My Money the Best Book on Writing Ever Written
Review: If you have to read one book on writing, pick Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular. It matters not if you are an aspiring fiction writer or craft journalistic feature stories, you will savor the time spent with Rust Hills book. This is a practical writing guide. It explains in an understandable fashion all the techniques of fiction - from Character and Action, Foreshadowing and Suspense to Irony and Point of View in a simple and useable fashion. Using experience cultivated over more than 20 years as the Feature Editor of Esquire Magazine, Hills organizes the information in an ingenious fashion. Each chapter not only explains, but also employs the particular technique to demonstrate how it works. Hills amplifies his thoughts with insightful comments on many of the enduring theorists and practitioners of the craft. My only regret is that it is easier to read about the techniques that to translate them into working stories.
Rating:
Summary: Single best source for any starting writer;amazingly helpful
Review: Rust Hills has created a reference that is valuable for even the most experienced writer. His expertise in the short-story, after years of editing The Esquire, has allowed him a unique ability to point out those simple things that are the most complicated for writers and offer helpful advice in the correction of these concerns. A brilliant read for anyone interested in writing
Rating: 
Summary: Valuable Addition to the Bookshelf
Review: Rust Hills' writing aphorisms range from brilliant to bland (there are parts that are worth only a skim). Where Hills really sizzles is when he bucks conventional wisdom, for instance, his contention that much of today's teaching is derived from the conventions of the Playwright, who is more constrained by the need to explain mood and thought verbally (textually) than the Short Story Writer, who has a different set of tools and problems. Other sections worth a close read include Hills' analysis of the so-called "Golden Age" of the short story. Hills points out that though there were more titles devoted to short fiction, much of it was pulp and exists today, only in the televison format to which it migrated. For those like me who would criticize the influence of today's MFA programs, Hills makes a strong case that academia has taken over the gestation of young writers from a consolidating (and more indifferent) publishing industry. The text also could have used more examples from master writers than (I can only presume that it was) Rust Hills himself. Sorensen in her book, for instance, looks at stories such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark. What a shame that we did not get to see the lengthy analysis of a master editor such as Rust Hills on at least one notable piece of fiction; that alone would have driven my rating of this book to five stars.
Rating: 
Summary: An awkward, painful read
Review: This book is just a little painful to read. It covers all the basics of form and elements of writing that an average sophomore high school english class will teach you. I have no doubt that the writer is a very good ability to _recognize_ great writing and literature. However, he really should have paired up with a writer to create this book, because he has a very awkward way of putting things, and there is a painful lack of flow not only between sentences, but _within_ them. Once I realized I couldn't just read through the book to try to learn something, I attempted to just use the book for refrence. This is still very, very painful, as the format of the book is a linear set of mini-chapters, with no real grouping and sub-grouping. It seems almost as he jumps from one topic to another. Sections about characters, style, plot, etc are distributed throughout the book, with random sections inserted between them. Another problem the reader must encounter are the dreadful examples of writing. They do show the points he is trying to make, but they are otherwise so horribly written that it's difficult to focus just on the one good thing of the passage, or the singular error the writer wants to point out. Also, if I read the word "But" at the beginning of a sentence one more time, my head will explode.
Rating:
Summary: An awkward, painful read
Review: This book is just a little painful to read. It covers all the basics of form and elements of writing that an average sophomore high school english class will teach you. I have no doubt that the writer is a very good ability to _recognize_ great writing and literature. However, he really should have paired up with a writer to create this book, because he has a very awkward way of putting things, and there is a painful lack of flow not only between sentences, but _within_ them. Once I realized I couldn't just read through the book to try to learn something, I attempted to just use the book for refrence. This is still very, very painful, as the format of the book is a linear set of mini-chapters, with no real grouping and sub-grouping. It seems almost as he jumps from one topic to another. Sections about characters, style, plot, etc are distributed throughout the book, with random sections inserted between them. Another problem the reader must encounter are the dreadful examples of writing. They do show the points he is trying to make, but they are otherwise so horribly written that it's difficult to focus just on the one good thing of the passage, or the singular error the writer wants to point out. Also, if I read the word "But" at the beginning of a sentence one more time, my head will explode.
| 
