Review: Good for beginners
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 03 3, 2013
I've read this book twice, first when I received the review copy and now closer to the blog tour. Since the book is rather a short one (80 pages) and simple, I'll also keep my review short and sweet.While some of the techniques that Rayne Hall writes about were not new to me, there were some new things that this book introduced me to. If you haven't read too much about the craft yet, it's simplicity will work for you: there is no beating about the bush, just plain explanation, example of use (and fair warnings of overuse and abuse in different genres). I mostly feel that the advice Rayne Hall offers would be excellent for writing shorter pieces of fiction.I wish there were more examples, or a chapter where she takes a scary scene and breaks it down to the elements and techniques she writes about, especially for the various "flavors" of fear. Rayne Hall makes a note that she cannot provide larger paragraphs due to copyright issues, but why not provide a short paragraph of her own to demonstrate the effect of each of them? At the end she includes three of her short stories that I really liked, but in which I was able to detect only a few techniques on my own.(Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.)