Review by samps1910 -- Creating Literary Stories: A Fict...

[samps1910]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Creating Literary Stories: A Fiction Writer's Guide" by William H. Coles.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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Creating Literary Stories: A Fiction Writer's Guide is a handbook for writers. I was a little hesitant to pick this up and start reading as I find guidebooks boring, but this was very different. This book was informational and far from monotonous. Every part explained has made me think and change my writing style.

William H. Coles has received many awards, one of which was the Flannery O' Connor Award for Short Fiction. He is definitely someone who knows what he is writing! In the book, Coles talked about all the main parts required for a literary fictional story. He also mentioned the little things that many authors overlook, such as the unnecessary conflict in dialogues, too many similes and metaphors and many things small as these, can cause an impact on the overall book, ruining it. The details of writing a scene were also explained by him, helping me understand the weight of emotions and desires of a character and how major they can be in progressing the plot of the story. He also gave an insight into the second-person POV and whether it is a useful tool.

I had never realized the importance of a word choice in stories before reading this. Characterization, starting from the name of the character, is also something that holds significance in causing an impact on the reader. William Coles did an excellent job to help writers improve!

What I liked most about the book was how straight-forward and honest the advice was. The author did not miss a beat to talk about what will be the downfall of a writer. I also liked that he mentioned humour and how it can be tough to please every reader. The appendix of the book includes the motivation and desire a writer should have to write a successful story. Getting the message across is harder than it looks!

There was nothing to dislike about this work. The author empathized with the writers and has explained the contents of literary fiction from the reader's side as well. I only spotted one grammatical error, which caused no hindrance to my reading experience.

I rate this work 4 out of 4 stars as it met my expectations and went above them as well. I will definitely be coming back to it every time I want to improve my writing. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in writing literary fiction!

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Creating Literary Stories: A Fiction Writer's Guide
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[Chigo Nwagboso]

Great review! I believe this book will be of great help to me since I write a lot. I'll add this to my shelf.

[samps1910]

Great review! I believe this book will be of great help to me since I write a lot. I'll add this to my shelf.

Definitely! Thank you!

[Olabode Joshua]

This is a very useful book! It's a book I'd certainly love to read. Thanks for telling me about this book, Samps.

[samps1910]

This is a very useful book! It's a book I'd certainly love to read. Thanks for telling me about this book, Samps.

Indeed, it is! Thank you