Brilliant, pages 84 to 87 alone justify the price of the book:
I have always been told I'm a "good writer" and I have always wanted to "write" (specifically, make up stories and put them on paper. And despite starting with Aristotle's Poetics in high school, I guess I just didn't get it. Even so, I have spent most of my adult life in jobs that were dependent on writing and reasoning skills but, despite the number of stories in my head, never knew what to do with them. So thank you, Nancy Kress for telling me how to go about writing a story. It could be that I'm... more info
Big help:
This book I read in christmas and it has been a very good help for me to write the end of a book I am working with. In fact if you write a beginning you have the end. That's what the books says. Now I have given the book to two in my writing group and they also think it is excellent. I never saw any other book on this subject.
Great Basic Guide:
This book is terrific for people who are just starting to try to write. It breaks down every initial stumbling block of the craft into small pieces in ways that are easy for inexperienced writers to understand and model. For more experienced writers, it might be useful to see the mechanical process for things one already understands (even innately). However, this is not a stunningly useful book for writers with more than a little experience.
Extraordinary...:
I read "Beginnings, Middles, and Ends" right after reading the (in my opinion) horrid "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" by Orson Scott Card, which seemed to me to be puffed up drivel. Ms. Kress's book was like a breath of fresh air. Her suggestions are helpful, her examples are wonderful without being self-promoting. She has a number of self-guided exercises that were basic and also, as a plus for beginners, build up writing confidence. If you are a beginner, or even intermediate writer, I would... more info
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