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Title: I hated, hated, hated this book
Review: It starts out being a not a bad reference and some of the examples are adequate, if not particularly insightful, or dealt with in any great depth. The author belongs to the colorful detail school of fiction writing -- he tells you every chance he gets. Fine. But by the final third of the book, the author is into total self promotion, and it gets on ones nerves. Instead of "How Fiction Works" being the title, perhaps it should have been "How Fiction has Worked Very, Very Well for Me." The book appears to have been dashed out to meet a contract committment without any serious thought put into it. Mr. Hall may well be the marvelous writer he claims to be, but as an editor he should aspire to improvement. I bought this book on the basis of an Amazon programmed recommendation and the reviewer comments. Sad to say, the rule about letting the buyer beware still applies.
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