by Monica Wood
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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Number one, 2008-06-20
The best writing book I ever read. This may sound strange, but I couldn't put this book down. It is filled with example after example on what bad descriptions vs. good and great descriptions look like and how to write them. I would highly recommend this book to any one who likes writing.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent reference for more than just description, 2008-06-11
Description by Monica Wood
There are eleven books in the Elements of Fiction writing series. This was the first one I read (because it arrived in the mail first) and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it was done. (I have the entire series listed on one of my listmania lists.)
This book is about much more than description; it's about writing a story that is so vivid it enthralls the reader. There are nine chapters, each filled with examples (except for nine) and ending in a wrap-up section that summarizes the high points.
Ch. 1 (excellent) - the telling detail, using the senses, simile and metaphor
Ch. 2 (excellent) - showing vs. telling, scene vs. narrative
Ch. 3 (awful) - context, theme, flashbacks, flash forwards, pacing
Ch. 4 (excellent) - description in dialogue, direct vs. indirect, dialogue tags vs. gestural pauses, adding modifying phrases, implied setting, description by omission
Ch. 5 (good) - point of view, first person, second person, third person omniscient, third person limited
Ch. 6 (awful) - style, content, minimalism vs. maximalism, avoiding sentimentality and melodrama
Ch. 7 (good) - setting, actual vs. fictional, history
Ch. 8 (good) - special problems, animals, weather, emotion, sound
Ch. 9 (awful) - tricks, circle your adverbs and adjectives, vivid colors, simple names
If you're a novice, this is an excellent book on writing, period. Even if you're experienced, this is an excellent reference with many fiction tools described beautifully and named (so you speak the same language as other writers).
Chapters 1 and 2 were excellent, giving a well-rounded view of how to add description as you're telling the story, rather than stopping and pointing it out. In chapter 3, the author spends a lot of time whining about amateur writing and flashbacks, which was a huge turnoff. Her BEFORE examples in this chapter were better than the AFTER examples, including a piece of her own writing on flash forwards, which was awful. Chapter 4 was another excellent chapter, giving a lot of useful detail on dialogue. By chapter 5, she provided some terrible overly descriptive examples ("the bony harp that was my father's body"). Chapter 6 was also pretty bad, when she goes on about style and the necessity of 15 revisions. After 15 revisions, no story will have all of the writer's style. You've edited it to death. Which leads me to wonder why she didn't include anything about "death by critique". That's when you listen to too many people and make unnecessary revisions that ruin your style, and your story. Chapter 7 was long-winded with too much description. In chapter 9, her tricks include advice that countermands earlier advice, so I kind of ignored most of this chapter altogether.
One word of warning. The author starts out with examples that balance both description and pace. By the end of the book, however, the pace has almost completely halted and the examples are way too descriptive (paragraphs long). I think that's probably why the chapter on pacing was so awful (chapter 3). On p. 138, she spends half a page describing a pond. It was dull. So, if you're willing to ignore the awful chapters and focus on the excellent ones, it's definitely worth the money. Even the good chapters had useful advice.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?, 2008-06-07
This is an excellent writing aid.
Here's why: If you want to know how to make a watch, most writing aid's only give you the correct time or make testimonials about the quality of specific watches. You never learn how to make a watch. This book details how to make watches with excellent examples of the significant steps in the process. And it illustrates how the right steps work, with examples of how other things dont work as well. Plus it provides examples of how hybrids sometimes work better for what you want.
The author is impressive because she knows what she professes, and knows how to make you competent too.
This book will make you happy.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Very Effective, 2008-02-10
As a writer, I've always considered description to be my strong suit, so I read other books in this series before I picked up this one. I wish now that I'd read it first. Monica Wood clearly articulates the difference between strong description and weak description and provides so many examples that it is easy to see her point, and easy to make the leap in your mind and change your way of thinking about description. I realize now that although I've always been good with imagery, my images lacked purpose. I'm a photographer by nature. I've been busy presenting my readers with snapshots when I should have been painting art for them. My images were clear, vivid and real, but they told my reader little about the underlying structure of either my characters or my theme. My descriptions created texture, but didn't incite emotion or meaning. I looked at my manuscript and realized I've got 70,000 missed opportunities. So far, I've revised three scenes and already I know my characters better. The writing is tighter, the characters sharper. Those scenes pack so much punch now that I'm faced with the opposite problem I had before- how to let the story breathe for a bit between those scenes. Pacing is going to be a different challenge for me now.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Excellent, 2008-01-02
This is an excellent source book for any new writers. I highly recommend this and the other books in the Writers Digest Elements of Fiction Writing series.
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