The Art & Craft of Novel Writing

Rating:
Summary: there are better books
Review: Except for the discussion of sensory details, this book is too vague to be useful for beginning writers. There are better books, such as Dibell's "Plot."

Rating:
Summary: Without question the best resource book a writer could have.
Review: This book approaches writing as a mechanical process and gives solid, concrete advice on topics such as characterization, opening scenes, and lots, lots more. The author uses many examples to make his points. Though not a large book, it is rich with non-mystical techniques and tips (I especially liked his advice regarding using small details for characterization instead of knocking a character's personality over the reader's head with lots of narrative, and the advice regarding how to pick a POV to write from). I seriously cannot think of a single other resource (besides a good dictionary) that would be more useful to an aspiring writer -- every single aspect of fiction writing is covered here.

For a while, this was one of the featured books in the Writer's Digest Book Club, and for good reason. If you want to improve your fiction, do not pass up this book.