Review: Excellent, useful, flawed, outstanding.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 11, 2012
Firstly, this is a MUST read for any writer. Even if it needs serious editing. This is a case of a writer needing an editor. It feels and reads like tertiary/college level notes. It is a pity that annoyances that would have been spotted and cleaned up by a professional editor were let through into the final draft and went to publication. Spelling - a whole bunch of errors like 'publically' for publicly. The over use of '-'izing' such as catalyzing, rationalizing, individualizing, tantalizing and so on. Any writer knows to scan their work for these strange adverbial constructions. Conjoined and confabulated words - too many to mention, 'callgirl', 'bookdealer' and on and on. There is also an unsettling calling to the reader to step outside the narrative to get the PC niceties of gender balance just so. Cringe-worthy stuff. Not needed. Unnecessary. Oh, and hyphens. Where did they come from?Now, having said that. BUY THIS LITTLE BOOK if you truly aspire to write a novel. In every crafty way known to the likes of JK Rowling and Val McDermid and dozens of other top writers, Alicia Rasley, has been in their secret mind spaces, listening to their interior monologues, stealing their best ideas about how to make plot and character and setting do their proper work, and she has written it all down in a perfectly erudite and gentle way to make your novel sing.I wished, as I read this, that she had been my teacher. So many years of toil would have been saved as I learned the craft. But you must be a patient and vulnerable student if she is to guide you safely and joyfully through this outstanding work.BUY IT.READ IT.STUDY IT.