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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 808.3876 EAN: 9780312089269 ISBN: 0312089260 Label: St. Martin's Griffin Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 272 Publication Date: February 15, 1993 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Studio: St. Martin's Griffin Editorial Review: Product Description: Do you dream of - Crossing the galaxies? Living in the far future? Entertaining millions with your imagination? This book can help make those dreams come true! Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy brings you expert advice on how to craft and market tales of the fantastic. Award-winning writers such as John Barnes, James Patrick Kelly, Norman Spinrad, Connie Willis, and Jane Yolen reveal some of their secrets of crafting believable stories, while Grand Masters Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein provide timeless advice for beginners and veterans alike. The editors also provide valuable insights into the process by which stories get published and they offer helpful hints on getting your story out of the slush pile and into print. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Great collectionI really enjoyed this collection and found it useful. I can understand the arguments people make that the collection can be contradictory, but that is do to the fact that there are different essays by different people with different roads to success. There is no one sure-fire way to write a good story, if there were we wouldn't need different perspectives. This seems obvious to me. Each writer can only comment on their own particular field of science fiction. Some people love hard science fiction, ... Read More Rating:  - 1 1/2 stars reallyI bought this book because I thought there would be more material concerning fantasy. Aside from the chapter "Turtles all the Way Down" there is little to do with fantasy, some chapters even have passages along the line of "fantasy maybe, but we're talking about sct-fi." There are also several mixed messages. One chapter says "Show, don't tell" and the next chapter says "Tell, don't show." The book as a whole doesn't agree on issues of the importance of plot v. characters as well. Read More Rating:  - Good diversity of input on the subjectAs some other reviewers have pointed out, this is not a cohesive, straight through guide to writing by a single author. It is a collection of 20 essays by 14 different authors on many different aspects of writing. The book covers plotting, characterization, creation of future societies, and (most important of all for aspiring writers) guidance on getting your first story published. This is an excellent book if you know what you are getting in to. It does not go into great depth on writing ... Read More Rating:  - Wildly Uneven, But Worth it For The Good BitsAt the most basic level, this book delivers what the title and subtitle promises: How-to essays by some of the biggest names (as of the mid-1980s) in science fiction writing. The majority deal with science fiction (rather than fantasy) and with magazine (as opposed to book-length) pieces. Would-be fantasy writers should beware, but should also be willing to cut the editors a little slack on the subject. New writers with no track record and no agent (the book's target audience) have always had an easier ... Read More Rating: - Great for Science Fiction, not for FantasyI was disappointed with this book because my primary focus is on fantasy, not science fiction. Originally I decided to pass on this book until I found out that a SF writer and teacher I admire loves this book, so I changed my mind and got it. If you know Analog which focuses on hard science fiction and Asimov's which focuses on character-driven science fiction, this book is exactly what you would expect. There are some incredible articles on how to create a believable planet and how to extrapolate ... Read More |
