Beginnings, Middles and Ends (The Elements of Fiction Writing)

This is a brilliant book - succint advice on how to craft a story or novel in a step by step format. Highly highly recommended!

I have bought this book for the reason I suppose anybody else did, and for the reason *you* who read this review are staring at this page. I'm a writer and I would like to have a book published. Mostly, I bought this book because I wanted suggestions to improve. I wasn't disappointed.

The Author gives good samples of how to make an opening attractive for a possible publisher, how to make a middle compelling, how not to ruin your story with a bad ending. The Author says everything you need to know to structure in the best way your story and explain also how you must deal with first and second draft and so on.

I think that this is a great refernce for anybody who wants to become a better writer. Definitely, I suggest this book as a first How-to book to read. Of course it must be integrated with other reads, such as the great "Characters and Viewpoint" by Orson Scott Card. This book doesn't want to be complete, but it makes the job it promises pretty well, giving to you good tips on how to structure your book or short story.

This is the second book from the Elements of Fiction Writing series that I've read (the first was Characters and Viewpoint, which is also excellent).

Beginnings, Middles, and Ends is a readable and informative guide to creating stories that hang together from the opening paragraph to the final page. There's advice here for both novelists and short-story writers (but most of the material is general, with specifics noted where necessary).

Kress provides so much excellent guidance for each stage (beginning, middle, end) that it's impossible to choose one part as being more useful than any other. In fact, the crucial message for me was the interconnectedness of these three things: the implicit promise that's set up in the beginning, developed in the middle, and paid off at the end.

Within that, there are all sorts of nuggets that will, for example, help you write opening paragraphs to grab the reader's (or editor's) attention, and craft endings that don't leave the reader feeling let down. There's also some more general advice on approaches to revision, dealing with writers' block, etc.

All in all, this will be a welcome addition to any aspiring writer's "craft of writing" shelf.