Review by Ms Awuor -- Creating Literary Stories: A Ficti...

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Ms Awuor
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Latest Review: Creating Literary Stories: A Fiction Writer's Guide by William H. Coles

Review by Ms Awuor -- Creating Literary Stories: A Ficti...

Post by Ms Awuor »

[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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Writing is a skill. Writing a fiction story requires even more of it. Unlike in a memoir where events in the narration are a reality, a fictional story takes a lot more effort. The author has to put together the characters, come up with a setting, theme, and plot. What's more, the author has to ensure that the read was worth the reader's time. Creating Literary Stories: A Fiction Writer’s Guide by William H. Coles is a comprehensive guide to writing fiction stories. Novice authors can benefit a great deal from reading this book; I recommend it to them without any reservation.

A literary fiction story is an imagined story founded on a theme. It may be intended for various reasons, including to enlighten and to entertain. In this book, Dr. Coles provides some insight on how to go about writing one.

The book is divided into two parts. Part one highlights the essential elements of a fiction story such as characters, dialogue, humor, time, conflict, etceteras. Characters in a well written literary story must be interesting and well-developed. The reader must be able to get a thorough grasp of who they are, and why they do the things they do. A good one is when the reader gets attached to a character or two when they finish reading the book. Narration requires a good mastery of language. It was interesting to learn that although the fiction author writes the story, he or she must not tell the story by themselves. Instead, they should create a narrator to do it.

Part two dealt with the practical aspects of writing a literary story. It explains, inter alia, how to do the narration, character development, structuring the work, and how to incorporate humor. The book concludes by providing fiction writers a checklist for ensuring a fiction story is written and reads well.

When you’re coaching others to write well, you must appear yourself to be a good writer; Dr. Coles proved just that. His ideas were captured and well organized. He did it as though he was explaining to a five-year-old. With the help of illustrations from other works of fiction, such as Shakespeare’s, Hamlet; you couldn’t possibly miss a point. And this was what I liked most. The language was plain and easy to understand. Moreover, there was neither profanity nor eroticism.

Whilst reading, I did not spot any errors, for that, I believe this book was professionally edited. I rate it at 4 out 4 stars since I cannot find a reason to deduct a star, and there was nothing I disliked anyway.

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Creating Literary Stories: A Fiction Writer's Guide
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Livingstone Ochieng
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Post by Livingstone Ochieng »

This is such a nice review.
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Ms Awuor
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Latest Review: Creating Literary Stories: A Fiction Writer's Guide by William H. Coles

Post by Ms Awuor »

Thanks @Livingstone Ochieng.
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Justine Ocsebio
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Post by Justine Ocsebio »

Sounds like a very insightful book. I like the fact that the language used by the author was simple and easy to understand. An aspiring writer will surely learn a lot from this. Great review!
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Ms Awuor
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Latest Review: Creating Literary Stories: A Fiction Writer's Guide by William H. Coles

Post by Ms Awuor »

@lavenderbooks20 Thanks for stopping by.
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