Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #154076 in Books
• Published on: 2000-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
"The best reading experiences", says Sol Stein, "defy interruption". With Stein's assistance, you can grab your reader on page one and not let go until "The End". Stein--author of nine novels (including the best-selling The Magician) and editor to James Baldwin, W H Auden, and Lionel Trilling--offers "usable solutions" for any writing problem you might encounter. He is authoritative, commanding, and neither cheerleader nor naysayer. Instead, he rails against mediocrity and demands that you expunge it from your work. Perhaps the concept of scrutinising every modifier, every metaphor, every character trait sounds like drudgery. But with Stein's lively guidance, it is a pleasure. Stein recommends that you brew conflict in your prose by giving your characters different "scripts". He challenges you, in an exercise concerning voice, to write the sentence you want the world to remember you by. He uses an excerpt from E L Doctorow to demonstrate poorly written monologue and a series of Taster's Choice commercials as an example of dialogue that works. Stein's bottom line is that good writing must be suspenseful. Your job, says Stein, "is to give readers stress, strain, and pressure. The fact is that readers who hate those things in life love them in fiction". --Jane Steinberg

Customer Reviews

Tools, not "empowerment"
I have read several books on writing, and this is the best by far. If you are like me, and are looking for a writing book that does more than encourage and empower you, that doesn't waste time talking about overcoming your "fears," then this is the book for you. Sol Stein will teach you how to control the pacing of your scenes, develop characters that work, create a "crucible" and more. I read it to the last page, turned back to page one and started again. There may be people who need empowerment to write. This is not for them. Stein on Writing is professional advice for writers who want to be professionals themselves.

Could do better
Sol covers a lot of ground here, and it's all good advice from an authentic master. But I found many of the examples badly selected, so that the point was made with less precision than I would expect. It was also heavier to read than the other reviews here had led me to expect.

I found Plot (Ansen Dibell) and Characters & Viewpoint (Orson Scott Card) more readable and clearer. However, between them they only cover half the ground that Sol covers.

All you need is Stein
Writing non-fiction has been my living for 12 years now. Add a number close to 30 published mystery and horror short stories, and you have my experience in the craft. Always seeking to learn more, I have spent a significant amount of money on "How to write"-books. Three years ago I bought Steins masterpiece of teaching. Believe me: Save your money and buy Stein on Writing today. It is the only book of its kind you will ever need. Tips, tricks and techniques from a master. Easy to understand, even if it digs deep into the darkness of writing tales people believe. Let Steins book become your writers bible. Use it daily. It may bring the hardest working among you to the bestseller lists. At least you risk getting published.