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Title: The only reason I can think for the low ratings...
Review: I will generalize a bit here, but in a fair way, I think.I have read the entire book carefully, four times, since buying it several years ago. The common thread for the poor reviews of this book is that those reviewers did not comprehend all of the material in the book, or they had a pre-determined formula of how to write. I can also say with certainty, for a number of the reviews, the reviewer did not read the entire book.Bickham does not mince words, is not at all vague, and gives painstakingly specific advice based on years of teaching, and writing books that get published. Furthermore, the end of the book consists of several appendices of annotated published manuscripts which explicitly demonstrate the structure he describes. Believe me, he couldn't be more clear. As such, I also think this book is suitable as a first book on writing a novel.Indeed, if you only bought one book on how to write a novel, this one would do the trick.
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