Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
Brilliant, pages 84 to 87 alone justify the price of the book, April 15, 2008
By
Robin Wolfson (Cameron Park, CA USA)
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 just dense, but the reading I've been doing lately (like Noah Lukeman's "The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile" and "Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction--and Get It Published" by by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato, both excellent, five-stars from me, at least) has been positively enlightening. And "Beginnings, Middles, and Endings" is one of the best. Frankly, it's hard to rave too much about this book, because there's no much to rave about. It's clear, crisp, orderly, incredibly organized (especially when you consider that she's dealing with what is essentially how to tell a story, no small task in itself). But even more, is enormous fun to read and leads inevitably to that great AH-HA! moment, somewhere in pages 84 - 87.
In general, the two series "Elements of Fiction Writing" and the Writer's Digest books on writing fiction are excellent and, in addition to being downright enlightening, are just pure, huge fun. For the first time in my life, I feel as if I know what I'm doing. Too bad it took so long, but there I was one morning, standing in front of the mirror lost in the thousand yard stare when all of a sudden my writing focus burst out at me like a super-nova. And ever since then, my life has simply made sense. Now THAT'S a mid-life crisis.
Big help, February 26, 2008
By
Scandinavian (Stockholm Sweden)
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, May 15, 2007
By
Katharine Coldiron (Maryland, USA)
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..., May 14, 2007
By
Jessica Murray (usa)
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 suggest not bothering with most of the books on the market on writing and read Ms. Kress's book first. I am a published writer of dark fantasy writing my first novel and found it extremely helpful. Highly recommended.
Marvelous Short-Cut to Learning to Write Fiction, April 15, 2007
By
Ken Schneyer (Barrington, RI USA)
John Irving once commented that his experience at writing workshops & conferences taught him things about writing (e.g., voicing) that he would eventually have picked up anyway, but that he saved a lot of time by not having to learn it the hard way. That's the way I feel about Nancy Kress's wonderful Beginnings, Middles and Ends.
First of all -- and this matters -- Kress is a world-class writer of fiction herself. She's famous in the science fiction community, and she deserves to be. So when she, of all people, gives clues about creating good plots, one should listen. She's that marvelous (and rare) combination, a stunning writer who can also teach.
This book uses a very methodical approach, speaking of the different parts of a piece of fiction separately and specifically addressing how they interact. Each chapter really deserves to be read several times, as the attitudes she recommends for writers can solve problems all by themselves. At the end of each chapter is a set of exercises that significantly improve one's ability to interpolate the lessons.
Much of what she says in her book I was beginning to discover on my own, but to see it put into print solidifies and sharpens my view. Personally I was writing several different stories over the time during which I read the book, and I found that it helped instantly. I'm actually stuck on one or two stories right now, and I'm going to dive back into the Kress book to see how she can help me; I know she can.
